ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

LETTERS  OF  STUART  WALCOTT 
AMERICAN  AVIATOR 


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STUART    WALCOTT    IN    HIS    AEROPLANE 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 


LETTERS  OF  STUART  WALCOTT, 

AMERICAN  AVIATOR :  JULY  4, 

1917,  TO  DECEMBER  8,  1917 


PKINCETON  UNIVEKSITY  PRESS 
PRINCETON 

LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 
OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1918 


na/3 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
Pbinceton  University  Press 

Published  April,  1918 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


•    ••  • 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction    (from  the  Princeton  Alumni 
Weekly)    1 

From  Princeton  to  France 7 

Stuart  Walcott's  Letters 14 

The  Final  Combat 89 

Stuart  Walcott  (a  biographical  note  by  his 
father)  90 


M89176 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


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LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Stuart  Walcott  in  His 

Aeroplane Frontispiece 

Stuart  Walcott  at  the 

Front Facing  page  38 

War  Cross  with  Palm, 

Awarded  in  Recognition 

of  Walcott's  Service. . .  .Facing  page  66 


>       It        ^      ■>    1 

)         4       •  •    O       •       • 
»        9      ■    sO       •         > 


•    «»-      ••»       * 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

INTRODUCTION 

[From  the  Princeton  Alttmni  Weekly  of  January  30,  1918.] 

It  is  now  seven  weeks  since  the  dispatches 
from  Paris  reported  that  Stuart  Walcott 
was  attacked  by  three  German  airplanes  and 
brought  down  behind  the  German  Hues,  after  he 
himself  had  brought  down  a  German  plane  in  his 
first  combat  on  December  12,  1917,  and  that  it 
was  feared  he  had  been  killed;  but  even  now, 
after  the  lapse  of  nearly  two  months,  it  is  not 
definitely  known  whether  his  fall  proved  fatal, 
or  whether  the  earnest  hope  of  his  friends  that  he 
is  still  alive  may  be  realized.  The  reports  are 
conflicting.  A  cable  message  of  January  7  said 
that  in  Germany  it  was  reported  that  S.  Walcott 
had  been  killed  by  a  fall  on  December  12  near 
Saint  Souplet;  but  Dr.  Walcott  received  a  letter 
on  January  19  which  holds  out  some  hope  that 
the  fall  was  not  fatal  and  that  his  son  may  be  a 
prisoner  in  Germany.    This  letter,  dated  Decem- 


2  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

be'ij  J  7,  is'.from  a  young  aviator  named  Loughran,* 
'^JiQ  w^9  Stuart  Walqott's  roommate  at  the  flying 
stcttibri.  He  gives  this  report  of  what  was  told 
to  him  by  an  observer  and  pilot  who  saw  the 
combat : 

"On  the  12th  of  December  at  11 :30  a.  m.,  there 
were  five  pilots  to  go  out  on  high  patrol,  includ- 
ing Stuart  and  myself.  But  I  was  prevented 
from  going,  because  of  a  wrenched  ankle.  Stuart 
and  the  other  pilots  left  here  at  11:40  a.  m.  for 
high  patrol,  which  means  they  are  to  fly  above 
the  thousand  metres.  Two  of  the  pilots  had  to 
return  because  of  motor  trouble,  leaving  one  pilot 
whom  Stuart  was  following. 

"At  12:50  a.  m.  they  ran  across  a  German  bi- 
place  machine.  The  French  pilot  attacked  first, 
but  had  to  withdraw  because  of  trouble  with  his 
machine  gun.  He  reports  that  the  Spad  [Stuart 
Walcott's  machine],  that  had  been  following  him, 
he  last  saw  a  thousand  metres  above  him,  or  the 
German.    Also  that  the  German  had  gone  back 

*  Loughran  himself  was  killed  in  combat,  in  February,  1918. 
Attacked  within  the  German  lines,  by  four  enemy  planes,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  geting  back  over  the  French  lines,  but  was  there  brought 
down.  He  was  buried  near  Chftlons.  The  Lafayette  Escadrille 
attended  his  funeral. 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  3 

over  his  lines.  The  infantry  and  artillery  obser- 
vers report  the  French  pilot's  attack  and  combat. 
And  that  six  minutes  later  the  German  returned 
over  our  lines.  And  that  the  Spad  that  was  seen 
flying  at  a  very  high  altitude,  came  down  and  at- 
tacked the  German,  and  succeeded  in  bringing 
him  down  in  flames.  In  doing  so  he  had  to  fly 
quite  a  way  over  the  German  territory.  And 
that  the  Spad  had  started  to  return,  when  three 
German  fighting  machines  were  seen  diving  on 
him,  and  forcing  him  down.  The  Spad  was  last 
seen  doing  a  nose-dive  perpendicular,  behind 
their  lines.  That  is  all  the  information  I  have 
received  up  to  date. 

"This  is  what  makes  all  the  boys  think  that 
Stuart  is  alive : 

"A  nose-dive  perpendicular  is  used  very  often 
in  combat,  but  is  very  dangerous,  as  it  is  very 
difficult  for  one  to  come  out  of  and  yet  have  their 
motor  running;  that  reason  might  force  him  to 
land ;  also  there  was  very  little  chance  for  him  to 
get  away  from  them  by  flying,  as  they  were 
above,  and  the  only  sensible  thing  to  do  was  to 
land ;  and  as  we  were  only  three  days  in  this  sec- 
teur,  the  French  think  he  might  have  been  mixed 
up  as  to  the  direction  for  home;  or  that  he  was 


4  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

slightly  wounded  and  could  not  turn  his  machine 
toward  the  French  lines. 

"I  have  tried  every  way  possible  to  get  infor- 
mation about  Stuart.  I  have  sent  the  numbers 
of  his  motor  and  machine  to  Major  S.  yros,  who 
is  trying  to  trace  it  through  the  Red  Cross  service. 

"One  of  the  French  pilots  of  this  escadrille, 
who  is  a  very  good  friend  of  your  boy,  shot  down 
a  German  biplane  on  13th  of  December.  The 
machine  fell  behind  our  lines.  The  pilot  was 
dead  before  reaching  the  ground.  But  the  ob- 
server was  only  slightly  wounded,  so  the  boys  of 
that  escadrille  have  asked  the  commander  of  the 
group  if  we  could  be  permitted  to  go  and  talk 
to  the  German,  as  he  may  know  something  about 
the  Spad  that  fell  behind  his  lines  the  day  before. 
We  hope  to  know  whether  we  will  be  permitted 
to  do  so  or  not,  tomorrow. 

"It  takes  two  months  before  we  receive  the  re- 
port from  Germany  officially.  In  the  meantime 
you  will  read  all  sorts  of  reports  in  the  news- 
papers. But  I  will  cable  or  have  Capt.  Peter 
Boal  do  so,  if  I  get  any  news  that  is  true. 

"The  case  of  Buckley,  the  American  who  fell 
Sept.  5,  was  reported  as  being  in  flames  from  five 
thousand  metres  down,  and  fell  in  German  terri- 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  5 

tory.  The  observers  reported  that  it  landed  on 
its  back  and  burned  completely.  His  parents 
were  notified  of  his  death;  newspapers  reported 
the  terrible  death  he  died.  Well,  Sir,  on  No- 
vember 25  we  received  a  letter  from  him,  saying 
he  was  enjoying  the  best  of  health  and  was  satis- 
fied with  his  surroundings  in  the  prison  camp  in 
Germany. 

"So  we  are  all  hoping  the  same  for  Stuart. 

"I  have  all  Stuart's  personal  things,  and  will 
give  them  to  Capt.  Boal  the  first  chance  I  get. 

"Mr.  Walcott,  it  is  beyond  words  for  me  to 
try  and  tell  you  how  grieved  we  all  are  about 
Stuart,  and  how  great  a  loss  it  is  to  the  Escad- 
rille,  for  him  to  be  away.  He  was  more  than 
liked  by  every  member  and  officer,  and  gave 
promise  of  doing  great  things,  was  always  up  in 
his  machine  trying  to  better  himself  in  combat 
flying;  there  never  was  a  minute  that  he  was  idle, 
if  it  was  possible  for  him  to  fly.  And  never  a 
more  generous  and  kinder  boy.  Only  the  night 
before  the  patrol  he  last  went  out  on,  he  gave  me 
every  care  in  the  world,  got  up  during  the  night 
to  make  sure  I  was  comfortable  and  to  do  any- 
thing he  could  for  my  ankle. 


6  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

"From  one  who  has  been  with  Stuart  through 
all  his  training,  and  room-mate  on  the  Front, 
"Yours  respectfully, 

"E.  J.  LOUGHEAN." 

This  letter  was  written  before  the  cable  dis- 
patch of  January  7,  from  the  International  Red 
Cross,  which  seems  to  establish  definitely  the  fact 
that  Stuart  Walcott  gave  his  life  in  support  of 
the  endeavor  to  "make  the  world  safe  for  de- 
mocracy/' In  further  and  final  evidence,  a  letter 
dated  February  5,  1918,  informed  Dr.  Walcott 
that  the  Red  Cross  agent  in  Paris  had  reported 
"Stuart  Walcott's  grave  has  been  found."  An 
accompanying  map  from  Loughran  shows  that 
the  spot  where  Stuart  Walcott  fell  is  on  a  hill  a 
little  South  of  Saint  Souplet. 


Benjamin  Stuart  Walcott  was  of  New  Eng- 
land ancestry.  His  earliest  known  American 
forbear  was  Capt.  Jonathan  Walcott  of  Salem, 
Mass.,  1663-1699.  Later,  one  of  Capt.  Jona- 
than's descendants,  Benjamin  Stuart  Walcott, 
served  in  a  Rhode  Island  regiment  during  the 
Revolutionary  War.  On  his  mother's  side  two 
ancestors  served  in  the  Continental  Army  and  in 
the  Revolutionary  War. 


FROM  PRINCETON  TO  FRANCE 

Stuart  Walcott  was  a  senior  at  Princeton 
in  the  winter  of  1916-17.  In  view  of  his  ap- 
proaching graduation  in  the  spring  his  father 
wrote  to  him  that  he  had  best  begin  to  think  about 
what  he  was  to  do  after  graduation  in  order  that 
he  might  get  on  an  independent  basis  as  soon  as 
practicable.  In  response  under  date  of  January 
7,  1917,  he  wrote: 

"You  spoke  of  my  being  independent  after  I 
graduate  in  the  spring.  If  I  go  to  Europe,  as 
I  want  to,  to  drive  an  ambulance  or  in  the  aero- 
plane I  will  be  doing  a  man's  work  and  shall  be 
doing  enough  to  support  myself.  If  the  work  is 
unpaid,  it  is  merely  because  it  is  charitable  work 
and  as  such  is  given  freely.  If  you  want  to  pay 
my  way,  I  will  consider  it  not  as  dependence  on 
you,  father,  but  as  a  partnership  that  may  help 
the  Allies  and  their  cause.  I  will  furnish  my  ser- 
vices and  you  the  funds  to  make  my  services 
available.    If  not,  I  will  be  willing  to  invest  the 


8  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

small  amount  of  capital  which  has  accumulated  in 
my  name.  I  have  been  thinking  of  this  work  in 
Europe  for  over  a  year  now,  and  am  still  very 
strong  for  it.  I  don't  know  what  the  effect  will 
be  on  myself,  but  if  it  will  be  of  service  to  others, 
I  think  that  it  is  something  I  ought  to  do." 

Being  assured  that  the  expenses  would  be  pro- 
vided for,  he  then  began  an  investigation  as  to 
the  best  method  of  procedure  to  obtain  training 
as  an  aviator.  In  a  letter  dated  January  26  he 
said: 

"Many,  many  thanks  for  sending  me  the  book 
on  the  French  Flying  Corps  by  Winslow.  I  read 
half  of  it  the  night  that  it  came  and  stayed  up 
late  last  night  to  finish  it.  He  gives  a  very 
straight,  interesting  and  apparently  not  exagger- 
ated account  of  the  work  over  there,  which  has 
made  it  somewhat  clearer  to  me,  just  what  it  is 
that  I  want  to  get  into.  Now  I  am  even  more 
anxious  than  I  was  before  to  join  the  service  over 
there.  The  more  that  I  think  about  it  and  the 
more  that  I  hear  of  it,  the  more  desirous  I  am  of 
getting  into  the  Flying  Corps.  If  a  man  like 
Winslow  with  a  wife  and  daughter  dependent  on 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES        '       9 

him  is  willing  to  take  the  risk  involved,  I  see  no 
reason  why  I  should  not. 

"You  mention  the  Ambulance  service  in  your 
last  note.  I  have  thought  of  that  quite  a  little 
and  would  definitely  prefer  the  aviation.  The 
ambulance  is  worth  while,  I  think,  in  that  it  gives 
one  an  opportunity  to  be  of  great  service  to  hu- 
manity, but  not  so  much  so  as  the  other.  There 
will  be  a  number  of  my  classmates  who  will  en- 
list in  the  American  Ambulance  this  spring,  but 
the  air  service  appeals  to  me." 

He  then  made  arrangements  with  the  Ameri- 
can representatives  of  the  Lafayette  Escadrille 
to  go  to  France  on  the  completion  of  his  college 
year.    On  January  29  he  wrote: 

"I  will  get  a  physical  examination  in  a  few 
days.  In  regard  to  getting  the  training  over 
here  first,  I  do  not  think  that  it  would  be  worth 
while.  The  instruction  over  there  would  be  first 
hand,  bright,  for  a  definite  purpose  and  on  the 
whole  superior  to  what  I  could  get  here.  I  could 
also  be  picking  up  the  language  and  the  hang  of 
the  country  at  the  same  time." 

On  February  24  he  received  word  that  his 


10  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

papers  presented  with  his  apphcation  for  admit- 
tance to  the  Franco- American  Flying  Corps  as- 
sured him  on  their  face  of  a  welcome  when  he 
presented  himself  in  Paris.  He  was  informed 
that  if  he  utilized  his  spare  time  in  availing  him- 
self of  any  and  every  opportmiity  to  familiarize 
himself  with  flying,  it  would  shorten  his  stay  in 
the  Student  Aviators  School  in  France.  On 
March  26  he  wrote: 

"I  haven't  been  able  to  find  out  anything  defi- 
nite about  the  school  at  Mineola.  As  yet,  no 
change  has  been  announced  to  my  knowledge,  in 
reference  to  hastening  up  the  course  in  event  of 
the  coming  of  war.  Over  a  hundred  men  have 
left  college  [Princeton]  already  to  start  training 
for  the  Mosquito  Fleet,  and  the  rest  of  them  are 
drilling  every  afternoon.  What  do  you  think  of 
the  advisability  of  stopping  college  and  going  to 
some  aviation  school?  Considering  that  it  takes 
several  months  to  become  at  all  useful  as  an  avi- 
ator and  that  war  is  practically  inevitable  now, 
I  think  it  would  be  wise  to  get  started  right 
away." 

And  again,  on  April  3: 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  11 

"I  saw  in  the  morning  paper  that  the  Ameri' 
can  fliers  in  Finance  would  be  transferred  to 
American  registry  immediately  after  the  decla- 
ration of  war.  When  you  next  see  General 
Squier,  I  wish  that  you  would  sound  him  on  the 
probability  of  a  force  being  sent  to  France  to 
learn  to  fly  according  to  French  methods.  That 
is  the  one  thing  above  all  others  that  I  want  to 
get  into.  If  there  is  any  chance  of  that  I  do  not 
want  to  get  involved  in  anything  else.  .  .  . 

"It  is  quite  certain  that  seniors  who  leave  col- 
lege now,  to  go  into  military  work,  will  receive 
their  degrees.  I  would  not  object  to  losing  the 
work  as  it  is  not  my  present  intention  to  keep  on 
with  theoretical  chemistry  and  that  is  what  I  am 
devoting  my  time  to  this  spring.  From  the 
standpoint  of  education  alone,  I  think  that  my 
time  could  be  more  profitably  spent  in  the  study 
of  aviation." 

Leave  was  granted  by  the  University,  and  on 
April  6  Stuart  Walcott  was  appointed  a  spe- 
cial assistant  to  Mr.  Sidney  D.  Waldon,  Inspec- 
tor of  Aeroplanes  and  Aeroplane  Motors,  Signal 
Service  at  Large.  He  immediately  reported  to 
Mr.   Waldon   and   worked   with   him   through 


12  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

April.     May  first  he  went  to  Newport  News, 
Virginia.    May  2  he  reported: 

"My  first  trip  up  was  this  afternoon  with  Vic- 
tor Carlstrom.  We  were  out  16  minutes  and 
cHmbed  3,500  feet.  It  was  all  very  simple  getting 
up  there — a  little  wind  and  noise  and  some 
bumps  and  pockets  in  the  air — a  glorious  view  of 
the  Harbor.  Then  we  started  to  come  down. 
First,  I  saw  the  earth  directly  below  through  the 
planes  on  the  left.  Then  the  horizon  made  a  sud- 
den wild  lurch  and  Newport  News  appeared  di- 
rectly below  on  my  right.  This  continued  for  a 
little  while  and  then  we  started  down  at  an  angle 
of  about  30  degrees  to  the  perpendicular,  turn- 
ing as  we  went.  I  later  learned  that  Carlstrom 
had  executed  a  few  steep  banks  or  sharp  turns 
and  then  spiralled  down.  It  ended  with  a  very 
pretty  landing,  following  with  a  series  of  banks 
to  check  speed.  Flying  from  my  first  impression 
is  a  very  fascinating  game  and  the  one  I  want  to 
stay  with  for  a  while.  I  have  signed  up  for  100 
minutes  in  the  air.  While  this  hundred  minutes 
will  not  make  me  a  flier  by  any  means  I  think  it 
is  well  worth  the  while  in  that  it  gives  me  a  little 
element  of  certainty  in  going  abroad.  I  will 
know  if  all  goes  well  that  I  am  not  unable  to  fly." 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  13 

The  next  day  he  wrote : 

"Two  flights  this  morning,  25  minutes  in  toto. 
The  greatest  sport  I  ever  had.  Wonderful  work. 
I  did  most  of  the  work  after  we  got  up  a  safe 
distance." 

Having  obtained  a  certificate  of  100  minutes 
flight  and  passed  the  necessary  physical  examina- 
tions, he  left  for  France,  arriving  at  Bordeaux 
May  31,  and  soon  reported  at  Avord  for  training. 


STUART  WALCOTT'S  LETTERS 


AVORD, 

July  4,  1917. 
Dear  H : 

.  .  .  My  work  here  is  going  well,  although 
slowly.  Those  in  my  class  ought  to  get  out  by 
October  if  nothing  goes  wrong.  There  are  some 
150  Americans  learning  to  fly  now  in  France, 
besides  the  ones  the  Government  may  have  sent 
over — ^more  than  a  hundred  at  this  one  school, 
and  the  oddest  combination  I've  ever  been  thrown 
with:  chauffeurs,  second-story  men,  ex-college 
athletes,  racing  drivers,  salesmen,  young  bums  of 
leisure,  a  colored  prize  fighter,  ex-Foreign  Le- 
gionnaires, ball  players,  millionaires  and  tramps. 
Not  too  good  a  crowd  according  to  most  stand- 
ards, but  the  worst  bums  may  make  the  best 
aviators.    There's  plenty  of  need  for  all  of  them. 

There  are  lots  of  Frenchmen  here  also  and  a 
big  crowd  of  Russians,  mostly  happy  youngsters 

14 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  15 

having  a  very  good  time.  They're  always  in  a 
hurry  to  get  up  in  the  air  and  are  continually 
breaking  machines  and  their  necks.  The  Ameri- 
cans have  an  endless  streak  of  luck  in  being  able 
to  fall  out  of  the  air  and  collect  themselves  un- 
injured from  amidst  a  pile  of  kindling  wood 
which  was  the  machine.  As  yet  I  haven't  done 
any  piloting  in  the  air,  so  can't  talk  very  wisely 
about  the  glories  and  thrills  of  slipping  through 
the  ephemeral  clouds.  All  I  have  learned  is  that 
almost  any  kind  of  a  dub  can  be  a  pilot,  but  that 
there  aren't  a  lot  of  very  good  ones.  The  idea  is 
to  get  enough  practice  to  become  a  good  one  be- 
fore arguing  with  the  elusive  Boche  at  a  high 
altitude. 

It  looks  over  here  as  though  there  would  be 
about  two  years  more  of  war,  judging  from  what 
most  people  say.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  after 
twelve  to  eighteen  months  we  will  be  able  to  take 
France's  place  at  the  front,  for  she  deserves  to 
be  relieved  and  will  have  to  be.  Even  now, 
France  is  almost  spent;  it  will  be  England  and 
the  United  States  who  will  finish  the  war.  This 
war  is  a  terrible  thing,  but  for  America  it  is  an 
opportunity  as  well.  I  am  glad  that  we  have  at 
last  come  into  it  and  that  it  will  be  no  half-way 


16  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

fight  that  we  must  put  up.  The  Canadians  have 
been  about  the  best  regiments  in  the  war.  Why 
shouldn't  America  be  as  good?  .  .  . 

Stuart. 


II 

EscoLE  d' Aviation  Militaire 
AvoRD,  Cher,  France. 
Friday,  July  13,  1917. 

You  see  it's  Friday,  the  thirteenth,  my  lucky 
day,  and  I'm  happy  because  the  work  is  going 
well.  First,  I'll  tell  you  about  a  smash  I  had  a 
week  or  so  ago. 

The  roller  or  Rouleur  class  which  I  smashed  in 
has  the  same  machine  as  those  that  fly  with  a  45 
P  motor.  Only  it  is  throttled  down,  and  we  are 
supposed  to  keep  it  on  the  ground — ^just  about 
ready  to  fly,  but  not  quite  getting  up — a  speed 
of  about  30  m.p.h.  When  there  is  the  slightest 
wind  we  can  not  roll,  because  the  wind  turns  the 
tail  around  and  swings  the  machine  in  a  circle — 
a  wooden  horse — cheval  de  hois,  I  rode  about 
the  end  of  the  list  Saturday — and  the  wind  had 
come  up  as  the  day  got  on.  Work  stops  at  8 :30 
a.  m.  always  because  there's  too  much  wind.  My 
first  sortie  or  trip  went  O.K.  with  a  considerable 
breeze  on  the  tail,  but  on  the  second  there  was 

17 


18  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

too  much  wind  and  after  I  got  going  pretty  fast 
— around  she  went.  The  wind  caught  under  the 
inside  wing  and  up  it  went.  Smash  went  the 
outside  wheel,  and  a  crackle  of  busting  wood. 
All  the  front  framework  of  wood  that  holds  the 
motor  was  smashed — a  pretty  bad  break.  The 
monitor  was  a  bit  mad  and  talked  to  me  a  bit  in 
French. 

The  next  morning  I  was  called  in  to  see  the 
chief  of  the  Bleriot  school,  Lt.  de  Chavannes,  a 
very  nice  officer.  He  told  me  that  my  monitor 
was  not  satisfied  with  me — ^that  he  had  told  me 
to  do  something  (cut  the  motor  when  the  ma- 
chine started  to  turn)  three  separate  times,  and 
that  each  time  I  had  intentionally  disobeyed,  that 
if  anything  like  that  happened  again  I  would  be 
radiated  (discharged  from  the  school).  That 
was  quite  the  first  I  had  ever  heard  of  it  and  I 
was  so  mad  at  the  monitor  that  I  could  have 
kicked  him  in  the  head.  I  tried  to  explain  to  the 
Lieutenant  but  he  never  heard  a  word,  so  I  just 
gurgled  with  wrath  and  didn't  do  anything.  But 
yesterday  we  got  another  monitor  who  is  a  dif- 
ferent sort. 

The  class  after  rouleur  is  decolle — it  is  the 
same  machine,  but  one  gets  oflp  the  ground  about 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  19 

a  metre  or  two,  then  slacks  up  on  the  motor  and 
settles  to  the  earth.  It  is  strictly  forbidden  to 
decolle  in  the  rouleur  class.  This  morning  I  had 
a  sortie  in  the  rouleur  and  all  of  a  sudden  noticed 
that  I  was  in  the  air  a  bit — managed  to  keep  it 
straight  and  get  out  of  the  air  without  smashing. 
The  monitor  said  nothing  so  I  decolleed  on  all 
the  sorties.  When  I  got  out  the  monitor  ex- 
plained that  it  was  strictly  forbidden  to  go  off  the 
ground  in  the  rouleur  class,  that  I  shouldn't  have 
done  it,  and  then  asked  me  if  I  would  like  to  go 
up  to  the  other  class.  Whereupon  consenting,  I 
am  now  in  the  decolle  class,  leaving  sixteen 
rather  peeved  Americans  who  arrived  in  the 
rouleur  the  same  time  I  did,  who  can  perform  in 
the  rouleur  quite  as  well  as  I  can  and  who  will 
remain  in  the  rouleur  for  some  time  yet.  They've 
no  grudge  against  me,  however,  as  it  was  only  a 
streak  of  luck  on  my  part.  Later  in  the  morning 
I  had  some  sorties  in  the  decolleur  and  got  up 
two  or  three  metres.  The  wind  was  too  strong, 
so  my  trips  were  a  bit  rough,  but  nothing  was 
damaged — so  hurrah  for  Friday,  the  thirteenth. 


Ill 

July  17,  1917. 
The  work  has  been  going  very  well  since  last  I 
wrote  you,  which  was  only  two  or  three  days  ago. 
I  told  you  about  at  last  leaving  the  blessed  roller ; 
I  never  was  so  relieved  in  my  life.  The  first 
evening  in  the  decolle  class,  I  was  requisitioned 
to  turn  tails  and  the  morning  after  there  was  too 
much  wind  to  work.  The  decolle  is  the  one 
where  you  go  up  two  or  three  metres  and  settle 
down  by  cutting  speed.  The  first  time  I  had 
three  sorties  in  the  wind,  bounced  around  a  lot, 
but  did  no  damage.  The  next  time  was  first 
thing  in  the  morning.  Two  metres  up  on  the 
first,  four  or  five  on  the  fifth — strictly  against 
orders.  I  even  had  to  pique — point  the  machine 
toward  the  ground — a  little,  which  is  not  at  all 
comme  il  faut  in  the  decolle.  But  these  French- 
men are  funny  chaps — sometimes  they  will  get 
terribly  angry  and  punish  one  for  disobeying, 
and  again  they  will  be  tickled  to  death  with  it. 
If  I  had  smashed  while  doing  more  than  I  was 

so 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  21 

told  to,  there  would  have  been  a  lot  of  trouble; 
as  it  was,  no  objection — and  the  monitor  per- 
sonally conducted  me  to  the  pique  class  with  a 
very  nice  recoramendation. 

Now  there  are  two  pique  classes:  one  with  a 
piste  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long,  in  which  one 
is  supposed  to  do  little  more  than  decolle,  get  up 
about  five  metres  and  pique  un  tout  petit  peu — 
hardly  at  all.  After  comes  the  advanced  pique 
with  a  much  longer  piste  on  which  one  can  get 
up  100  metres  (300  feet).  On  my  first  sortie  in 
the  pique,  I  was  told  to  roll  on  the  ground  all  the 
way,  so  continuing  my  policy,  did  a  low  decolle. 
Next  I  was  supposed  to  do  a  two  metre  decolle, 
so  went  up  ten  and  piqued.  Had  ten  sorties  in 
that  class  one  morning,  getting  as  high  as  I 
could — about  twenty  metres — and  went  to  the  ad- 
vanced pique  that  night — last  night.  Four  sor- 
ties there  last  night  with  a  machine  with  a  poor 
motor,  so  didn't  get  up  over  a  hundred  feet. 

And  this  morning  I  did  my  first  real  aviating. 
There  was  a  bit  of  wind  blowing,  so  the  monitor, 
Mr.  Moses,  only  let  a  Lieutenant  and  me  go  up, 
as  we  had  gone  better  than  the  others  last  night. 
First  it  was  a  bit  rainy  and  always  bumpy  as  the 
deuce — air  puffs  and  pockets  which  require  the 


22  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

entire  corrective  force  of  the  wing  warp  and  rud- 
der to  overcome.  My  last  sortie  was  decidedly 
active.  The  wind  had  developed  into  a  bit  of  a 
breeze  which  is  to  a  Bleriot  like  a  rough  sea  to  a 
row  boat.  Two  or  three  times  I  got  a  puff  that 
tipped  the  machine  'way  over — put  the  controls 
over  as  far  as  I  could  and  waited.  It  seemed  a 
minute  before  she  straightened.  The  trouble  was 
that  the  machine  was  climbing  and  therefore  not 
going  very  fast.  If  I  had  'piqued,  it  would  have 
corrected  quicker.  I  had  no  trouble  at  all  in 
making  the  landing.  Hopping  out  of  the  ma- 
chine, I  saw  the  head  monitor  rushing  over  to 
Mr.  Moses  on  the  double,  shouting  volubly  in 
French  and  berating  him  severely.  I  gathered 
that  he  had  been  watching  my  manoeuvres,  ex- 
pecting something  to  fall  every  instant,  and  that 
he  strenuously  objected  to  Moses'  letting  me  go 
up.  Work  stopped  there  for  the  morning,  and  it 
was  very  fully  explained  to  me  what  the  trouble 
was.  If  I  have  some  sorties  there  tonight,  I  go 
to  Tour  de  Piste  (Flying  Field)  in  the  morning. 
I  may  be  on  Nieuport  in  two  weeks. 

I  am  now  beginning  to  see  the  advantages  of 
the  Bleriot  training.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
preliminary  work  on  or  near  the  ground.    In  all 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  23 

other  aviation  training,  such  as  at  Newport  News, 
90  per  cent  of  the  work  is  in  making  landings — in 
piqueing  down,  redressing  at  the  proper  moment 
and  making  gradual  connections  with  the  earth. 
I  haven't  made  a  really  bad  landing  yet  and  the 
reason  is  that  I  have  been  in  a  machine  so  much 
on  and  near  the  ground,  that  I  have  sort  of  de- 
veloped a  sense  or  feel  of  it,  and  almost  auto- 
matically redress  correctly,  and  settle  easily. 
Also  I  can  tell  pretty  closely  what  is  flying  speed 
because  of  the  work  on  the  rollers.  It's  the  same 
way  with  all  the  other  students  only  I  know  it 
now  from  my  own  experience. 

And  this  morning  I  began  to  realize  that  my 
hundred  minutes  at  Newport  News  was  invalu- 
able. I  not  only  found  out  some  of  the  tricks  of 
a  master  hand  (Carlstrom)  but  also  developed  a 
bit  of  confidence  in  the  air,  and  air  sense,  with- 
out which  I  could  have  got  into  trouble  this  morn- 
ing. My  bumpy  ride  this  morning  is  absolutely 
invaluable.  I'll  probably  never  have  so  much 
trouble  in  the  air  again,  because  a  fast  machine 
or  even  a  Bleriot  with  a  good  motor,  would  hard- 
ly have  noticed  these  puif s.  It  was  a  bit  risky, 
I  guess,  or  the  head  monitor  would  not  have  been 
worried,  but  now  that  it's  over,  I  know  a  lot 
more. 


IV 

August  11,  1917. 


Dear * : 

You  have  certainly  developed  into  a  wonder- 
ful correspondent.  Honest-to-goodness,  a  letter 
you  started  my  way  about  a  month  ago  was  quite 
the  most  satisfactory  and  amusing  thing  I've  re- 
ceived since  I've  been  over  here.  Based  on  prac- 
tically no  material,  yet  it  was  alive  with  interest, 
every  line.  There's  nothing  like  a  finishing 
school  education.  If  I  thought  that  you  could 
knit,  I  would  immediately  appoint  you  as  my 
marraine  (godmother),  for  it's  quite  possible  for 
one  person  to  have  more  than  one  soldier  and  I 
am  but  a  soldier  of  the  second  class  in  the  French 
Army.  As  I  understand  it,  the  chief  duty  of  a 
marraine  is  to  write  letters — you've  started  that 
in  good  style — and  to  knit  wool  scarfs,  which  the 
devoted  soldier  hands  to  a  French  peasant  wo- 
man to  unravel  and  make  a  pair  of  socks  out 
of.  .  .  . 

*  One  of  his  school  friends. 

94 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  25 

Many  Yale  boys  have  wandered  in  upon  us  of 
late,  Alan  Winslow,  Wally  Winter,  George 
Mosely,  and  others.  Also  Chester  Bassett,  late 
of  Washington  and  Harvard  University,  who  I 
believe  has  the  good  fortune  to  be  acquainted 
with  you,  a  very  recommendable  young  man. 
They  tell  me  that  Cord  Meyer  is  aviating  at  some 
camp  nearby,  but,  not  having  any  machines,  they 
have  to  spend  their  time  touring  the  country  in 
a  high  powered  motor. 

Had  a  long  and  gossipy  letter  from  Pat  the 
other  day,  containing  details  of  many  weddings 

and  engagements,  even  unto  young  

.    All  my  classmates  are  doing  the  same 


stunt.  How  about  being  original  and  waiting 
until  the  war  is  over  and  seeing  who  of  the  com- 
petitors are  left?  I  quite  expect  to  be,  but  it's 
luck  I'm  trusting  to;  there's  a  lot  of  war  left  in 
the  nations  of  Europe.  One  never  can  tell;  I 
may  come  home  on  permission  in  a  French  uni- 
form with  a  wing  on  my  collar.  .  .  .  When  the 
American  Air  Service  is  a  little  further  along,  it 
may  be  that  we  will  be  taken  over  from  the 
French  Army. 

I  finished  up  in  one  division  of  the  school  the 
other  day  and  passed  to  another  for  brevet,  the 


26  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

tests  for  a  military  aviator.  I  sort  of  have  the 
impression  that  I  wrote  you  a  few  weeks  ago 
about  it,  but  not  being  sure,  run  the  risk  of  repe- 
tition, which,  if  any,  I  hope  you  will  excuse. 
This  epistle  is  being  written  out  at  the  piste  (fly- 
ing field),  waiting  for  the  wind  to  drop  enough 
to  fly,  and  with  me  seated  amidst  a  bunch  of  Rus- 
sians, so  if  there  are  any  superfluous  "iskis"  or 
"ovitches"  in  this,  you  will  understand  why.  The 
Russians  are  great  fliers;  in  fact  they  know  so 
much  about  it  that  they  never  listen  to  their  moni- 
tors and  as  a  result  break  more  machines  than  all 
the  other  pupils  combined.  A  month  ago  B.ye  of 
them  went  to  the  next  school  for  acrobacy  and  in 
a  week  every  one  of  them  had  killed  himself.  I 
pulled  a  bit  of  the  same  Russian  stuff  in  the 
spiral  class  of  the  Bleriot.  All  the  work  is  solo — 
never  a  flight  double  command  so  one  has  to  get 
instructions  on  the  ground  and  follow  them  in 
the  air. 

I  used  my  head  and  senses  in  performing  my 
first  spiral,  instead  of  shutting  my  eyes,  doing 
what  I  had  been  told  and  trusting  to  God.  The 
result  was  that  I  made  one  more  turn  than  I  ex- 
pected to  and  that  quite  perpendicular,  not  at  all 
comme  il  faut  in  a  Bleriot.    Why  something  did 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  27 

not  break  has  been  the  wonder  of  the  Bleriot 
school.  But  nothing  did  and  we  got  down  all 
right.  Another  time  I  planted  a  cuckoo  on  her 
nose,  which  is  not  at  all  encouraged  by  the  moni- 
tors. 'Tis  quite  a  trick  to  balance  a  monoplane 
on  its  nose  on  the  ground,  but  I  did  it — quite 
vertical  she  lay,  with  me  in  the  middle  struggling 
with  the  safety  belt  and  wondering  which  way  it 
was  going  to  fall.  My  final  appearance  in  the 
Bleriot  school  was  likewise  spectacular.  The 
left  wing  hit  a  hole  in  the  air  which  the  right  one 
didn't.  Naturally  things  tipped;  then  they 
wouldn't  straighten  and  the  only  thing  to  do  was 
to  dive  to  the  low  side.  I  did,  but  forgot  to  shut 
off  the  motor.  A  very  steep  and  fast  spiral  re- 
sulted in  which  I  lost  500  feet  in  a  half-turn  in 
about  two  seconds,  I  think,  all  with  the  motor 
going  to  beat  the  cars.  I  must  have  been  travel- 
ling at  many  hundreds  of  miles  an  hour.  Once 
again  nothing  broke,  but  it  was  no  fault  of  mine 
that  it  didn't.  .  ,  . 

Sincel*ely, 

Stuart. 


August  25,  1917. 
I  started  for  my  altitude  test  three  days  ago. 
The  requirement  is  one  hour  above  2,000  metres. 
I  got  to  1,950  metres  and  one  cylinder  refused  to 
fire,  so  I  was  forced  to  come  down.  The  next 
morning  I  tried  again,  got  to  900  metres  and  the 
magneto  ceased  to  function,  thereby  stopping  all 
progress.  I  glided  toward  home,  but  didn't  have 
quite  the  height  to  make  the  piste,  so  had  to  land 
in  a  nearby  field,  just  dodging  a  potato  patch. 
A  flock  of  curious  sheep  came  around  and  care- 
fully examined  the  machine,  getting  considerably 
mixed  up  in  the  wires  of  the  open  tail  construc- 
tion and  leaving  considerable  wool  thereon. 
When  the  mechanics  eventually  got  the  motor 
going,  I  started  off,  didn't  get  quite  in  the  air 
before  the  motor  went  bad  and  then  I  ran  into 
a  bean  patch,  gathering  about  a  bushel  of  beans 
with  the  same  tail  wires.  Yesterday  morning  I 
tried  again,  climbed  to  2,000  in  fourteen  minutes 
and  to   8,500   metres    (11,500    feet)    in    forty 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  29 

minutes.  I  went  up  through  some  light  clouds 
and  when  I  got  to  3,500,  the  top  of  my  recording 
barograph,  more  clouds  had  formed  and  I  was 
practically  shut  off  from  the  earth,  nothing  but  a 
beautiful  sea  of  clouds  below  me,  a  very  beautiful 
sight.  One  other  machine  was  in  sight,  far  below 
me,  but  on  top  of  the  clouds.  Not  wanting  to  get 
lost  I  came  down  through  the  clouds  and  stayed 
out  my  hour  just  above  2,000  and  below  the 
clouds,  where  the  air  was  very  much  churned  up, 
keeping  me  very  busy.  Just  as  soon  as  the  time 
was  up  I  came  down  with  a  pair  of  very  chilled 
feet,  making  the  2,000  metres  in  five  minutes  to 
the  ground.  No  work  since  then  on  account  of 
bad  weather. 

This  morning  I  attended  my  first  Catholic 
funeral,  that  of  the  commandant  of  the  school 
who  was  the  victim  of  a  mid-air  collision,  a  very 
unusual  accident.  The  other  machine  got  down 
safely  though  badly  smashed.  Everybody  in 
camp  attended  the  funeral  in  the  chapel  of  the 
Artillery  Camp  next  door.  I  understood  none 
of  the  service,  but  the  music  by  a  tenor  and  a 
'cello  was  excellent.  While  the  cortege  was  go- 
ing down  the  hill  to  the  cemetery,  a  Nieuport 
circled  overhead  very  low  for  half  an  hour  or 


30  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

more  and  dropped  a  wreath.    It  was  a  very  im- 
pressive ceremony. 

I  expect  to  start  on  triangle  and  petit  voyage 
in  a  few  days.  When  they  are  done,  I  will  be  a 
breveted  flier  in  the  French  Army.  Then  comes 
perfectionne  work  and  acrobacy,  so  it  will  be  quite 
a  while  yet  for  me. 


VI 

August  31,  1917. 


Dear * : 

Here  it  is  almost  September  and  I  am  still  a 
dog-goned  eleve  pilote.  Verily,  every  time  I 
think  of  how  the  time  passes  along  without  re- 
sults, I  go  wild.  My  complaint  is  caused  by  the 
west  wind,  which  has  blown  about  twenty-five 
days  during  the  month  of  August  and  seems 
likely  to  continue  well  on  into  September.  The 
only  variety  is  an  occasional  storm.  For  the  past 
two  weeks  I've  been  waiting  to  start  my  voyages, 
two  trips  to  a  town  forty  miles  away  and  back 
and  two  other  triangular  trips  about  180  miles 
long  each.  When  they  are  done,  one  becomes  a 
pilote  eleve;  and  there's  a  great  if  subtle  differ- 
ence when  the  words  are  reversed.  An  eleve 
pilote  is  the  scum  of  the  earth,  looked  down  on 
by  mechanics,  pilots,  monitors,  and  everyone  else ; 
a  pilote  eleve  can  wear  wings  on  his  collar  and  is 
as  good  as  any  one  else.    He  is  permitted  to  fly 

*  One  of  his  school  friends. 

31 


82  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

in  rough  weather,  to  take  chances  and  is  not  in 
so  much  danger  of  getting  radiated  if  he  gets  in 
trouble.  The  proper  thing  to  do  on  a  triangle  or 
petit  voyage  is  to  have  something  bust  directly 
over  a  nice  chateau ;  make  a  skilful  landing  on  the 
front  lawn  under  the  eyes  of  the  admiring  house- 
hold and  then  be  an  enforced  guest  for  a  few 
days  imtil  one  is  rescued  by  a  truck  and  mechan- 
ics. One  has  to  be  very  careful  where  the  panne 
de  moteur  catches  him  lest  he  have  to  make  his 
landing  in  a  lake  or  on  a  forest,  which  is  apt  to 
be  a  bit  awkward.  One  chap,  an  American,  has 
been  out  on  a  triangle  for  two  weeks,  staying  at 
some  country  place,  and  there  are  four  others  at 
another  school  near  a  big  town  waiting  for 
weather  to  return.  Reports  give  us  to  believe 
they  are  having  a  much  better  time  there  than  we 
are  here. 

Between  here  and  the  point  for  the  petit  voy- 
age— a  little  bit  off  the  route,  is  the  big  future 
American  aviation  camp  and  also  an  Artillery 
camp.  There  are  quite  a  bunch  of  fellows  there, 
Quentin  Roosevelt,  Cord  Meyer,  etc.,  I  think. 
Every  American  that  has  left  on  his  voyages  in 
the  last  month  has  stopped  there  against  all  or- 
ders and  been  bawled  out  by  the  monitor.    One 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  83 

has  to  keep  a  recording  barometer  or  altimeter 
machine,  a  barograph,  during  the  voyages,  which 
indicates  all  stops.  One  chap  came  back  home 
the  other  day  with  a  barometer  record  showing 
beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  he  had  made  a 
stop  of  about  fifteen  minutes  en  route.  The 
monitor  saw  it,  said,  "Alors^  all  you  Americans 
stop  off  there,  I  don't  like  it."  Then  the  chap 
tried  to  explain  how  he  had  had  a  panne  and 
come  down  in  a  field  out  in  the  country  some- 
where, fixed  the  motor  and  come  on  home.  He 
almost  got  away  with  it,  but  the  monitor  hap- 
pened to  snook  around  a  bit  and  noticed  on  the 
tail  very  clearly  written  a  good  Anglo-Saxon 
name,  the  name  of  the  town,  and  the  date — quite 
indisputable  evidence.  I  fully  expect  to  have  a 
panne  there  myself  before  long. 

By  the  way,  to  declare  a  short  pause  in  my 
chronicle  of  aviation,  how  about  all  those  "letters 
that  are  to  follow"?  If  you  try  to  tell  me  how 
good  you  are  to  your  Belgian  soldier,  I  refuse  to 
believe  a  word  imtil  you  treat  me  in  the  same 
way.  And  I  also  refuse  to  accept  anyone  as  a 
marraine  (isn't  that  what  you  call  these  fairy 
godmother  persons  one  is  supposed  to  correspond 
with   during  the   war   and   marry   afterward? 


34  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

How  inconsiderate  some  of  them  are,  to  take 
three  or  four  soldiers,  just  assuming  that  not 
more  than  one  will  survive ;  however,  they  may  be 
wise  to  have  more  than  one  iron  in  the  fire.  But 
my  parenthesis  grows  apace.) — I  say  I  refuse  a 
marrcdne  until  she  approves  her  ability.  But 
let  me  see  again.  Does  said  marraine  have  to  be 
a  complete  stranger?  It  seems  to  me  that  is  cus- 
tomary, and  also  usually  they  are  of  different 
nationalities.  All  of  the  foregoing  weak  line  will 
be  interpreted  as  a  mere  plea  for  that  other  let- 
ter.    I've  never  made  this  "absence  makes  the 

heart  grow  fonder"  stuff  at  all.    Even 

has  given  me  up;  I  remain  to  her  only  another 
of  the  forgotten  conquests  (?)  of  the  dead  past. 
•  •  • 

This  odd  person,  Bassett,  wandered  in  all 
dressed  up  like  a  patch  of  blue  sky  and  I  just 
had  to  let  you  know  he  was  here.  With  absolute 
confidence  in  each  other's  integrity,  we  put  our 
loving  messages  side  by  each.  By  the  way,  he  is 
a  good  scout,  don't  you  think?  I  have  gotten  to 
like  him  immensely  since  he  has  been  here.  I 
never  had  a  better  time  in  my  life  than  one  eve- 
ning in  Paris  with  Chet.  However  quiet  the 
party,  he  is  the  life  of  it. 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  35 

It  must  be  that  I  take  my  weekly  shave — in 
cold,  cold  water,  with  a  dull,  dull  razor.  Oh, 
happy  thought!     Tell  the  father  and  brothers 

hello  from  me.    Also  tell to  drop  me  a 

line  of  what  he's  doing  and  when  he's  coming 
over. 

Stuart. 


VII 

September  1,  1917. 
The  wild  man  in  the  Nieuport  was  out  again 
this  morning  giving  some  one  a  joy  ride.  There 
is  a  long  straight  stretch  of  road  in  front  of  our 
piste  and  he  came  down  that  several  times,  a 
nasty  puflfy  wind  blowing  which  bothered  him 
not  at  all,  flying  only  two  or  three  feet  off  the 
ground.  In  front  of  the  piste  is  a  telephone  wire 
crossing  the  road.  He  came  along  the  road  100 
miles  an  hour  imtil  almost  on  top  of  the  wire  and 
jumped  up  just  in  time  to  clear  it  by  a  few  feet — 
really  beautiful  work.  He  goes  all  over  the  sur- 
rounding country  flying  low,  hopping  over  trees 
and  houses,  sometimes  turning  up  sideways  to 
sUp  between  two  trees  a  bit  too  close  together  to 
fly  through;  sometimes  dragging  a  wing  through 
the  space  between  a  couple  of  hangars  or  doing 
vertical  virages  just  in  front  of  them.  It  doesn't 
seem  possible  that  any  man  can  be  so  much  a  part 
of  his  machine,  can  be  so  consistently  accurate 

36 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  37 

that  he  never  misses.    For  this  chap,  Lumiere, 
has  never  had  a  smash.  .  .  . 

A  chap  named  Loughran  started  oflf  on  one  of 
his  brevet  voyages  a  few  days  before  I  got  ready 
for  brevet.  He  got  quite  a  ways  along,  ran  into 
a  storm,  went  above  it,  got  caught  in  a  cloud, 
kept  on  for  quite  a  long  way  being  drifted  by  a 
strong  wind,  then  came  down  through  the  clouds 
and  found  that  they  were  only  400  feet  above  the 
ground.  After  a  while  he  found  a  place  to  land 
and  came  down  safely.  He  went  to  a  farmhouse, 
got  his  machine  guarded  and  tied  down.  In  the 
meantime  word  had  spread  over  the  countryside 
that  an  aviator  had  come  down  there  and  the  en- 
tire population  came  out  to  look  him  over.  A 
grand  equipage  drove  up  with  a  Count  who  lived 
in  a  nearby  chateau.  He  insisted  that  Eddie 
come  to  the  chateau  and  accept  their  hospitaUty. 
There  the  fortimate  Ed  stayed  five  days;  the 
Countess  talked  English,  and  also  some  house 
guests.  He  hadn't  brought  a  trunk  so  borrowed 
razor,  etc.,  from  the  Count ;  went  down  to  see  the 
machine  every  day  in  the  baronial  barouche. 
Whenever  he  went  to  the  little  town  in  the  vicin- 
ity all  the  kids  followed  him  around  the  streets 
and  when  at  last  he  left,  he  was  presented  with  a 


38  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

multitude  of  bouquets  and  had  to  kiss  each  and 
every  donor.  He  brought  back  pictures  of  the 
chateau — a  delightful  looking  old  place — and  nu- 
merous addresses. 


STUART    WALCOTT    AT    THE    FRONT 


C     (l  66     * 


c    c      c    c 


VIII 

September  4,  1917. 
At  last  the  two  weeks  of  wind  and  rain  has 
ceased  and  now  it  is  perfect  weather — a  bit  of  a 
breeze  and  lots  of  sun  for  the  last  two  days., 
Yesterday  morning  there  weren't  enough  ma- 
chines to  go  aromid  so  I  did  not  work,  making 
the  eighth  consecutive  day  I  hadn't  stepped  in  a 
machine.  Last  evening  I  at  last  and  with  much 
rejoicing  started  out  on  my  "maiden  voyage"  to 
another  school  about  60  kilometres  away  (37.5 
miles).  It  was  delightfully  easy — ^nothing  to  do 
but  climb  two  or  three  thousand  feet  and  just  sit 
there  and  watch  the  coimtry  unfold,  comparing 
the  maplike  surface  of  the  earth  spread  out  below 
with  the  map  in  the  machine.  In  good  weather  it 
is  very  easy  to  follow,  spot  roads,  towns,  woods, 
rivers  and  bridges.  Railroad  tracks  get  lost  at 
high  altitudes  and  are  harder  to  find  anyway. 
One  has  to  keep  an  eye  open  for  a  place  to  land 
within  gliding  distance  in  case  of  a  panne  always, 
but  the  country  is  so  flat  and  so  much  cultivated 


40  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

around  here  that  it  is  absurdly  simple.  I  en- 
deavored always  to  keep  some  pleasant  looking 
house  or  chateau  in  range  in  ease  of  trouble,  for 
the  French  are  proverbially  hospitable  to  aviators 
en  panne  (lying  to,  descending) . 

Coming  back  yesterday  evening,  the  sim  was 
pretty  low  and  the  air  absolutely  calm,  nothing 
but  the  drone  of  the  motor  and  the  wind;  the  only 
movements  necessary  an  occasional  shght  pres- 
sure on  the  joy  stick  to  one  side  or  the  other  to 
keep  the  proper  direction.  I  came  very  nearly 
going  to  sleep,  it  was  so  peaceful  up  there;  sev- 
eral times  closed  my  eyes  and  swayed  a  bit.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  one  is  perfectly  safe  at  that  alti- 
tude— ^anything  over  a  thousand  feet — ^because 
the  machine,  at  least  this  particular  type,  won't 
get  into  any  position  from  which  one  cannot  get 
it  out  within  200  metres  at  most.  But  neverthe- 
less I  haven't  tried  any  impromptu  falls  as  yet. 

This  morning  I  repeated  the  same  identical 
performance,  because  for  some  reason  we  have  to 
do  two  petits  voyages,  and  had  much  the  same 
kind  of  a  time  as  yesterday.  On  the  way  home 
one  cylinder  quit  its  job  and  threw  oil  instead, 
covering  me  from  head  to  foot  and  clouding  up 
my  goggles  so  I  had  to  wipe  them  off  about  every 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  41 

minute.  When  I  got  back  the  mechanics  decided 
that  that  motor  had  died  of  old  age  and  would 
have  to  be  repaired,  so  I  am  again  without  a 
machine.  Have  watched  a  beautiful  afternoon 
pass  by  from  the  barracks  when  without  my  luck 
I'd  be  working.  But  with  a  machine  and  wea- 
ther, I  can  be  finished  tomorrow;  two  triangles 
to  do  about  200  kilometres  (125  miles)  each  and 
I  can  do  one  in  the  morning  and  the  other  in  the 
evening  and  then  I'm  breveted.  Perhaps  by  day 
after  tomorrow  I'll  start  perfectionne  on  Nieu- 
port.    I  hope  so. 


IX 

September  9,  1917. 

Since  my  last  to  Father,  I  have  had  some  very 
interesting  times.  First,  I  finished  my  brevet 
with  very  little  excitement,  made  all  my  voyages 
and  only  got  lost  a  little  bit  once.  Then  I  saw 
two  machines  on  the  ground  in  a  field,  made  a 
rather  dramatic  spiral  and  steeply  banked  descent 
amidst  a  crowd  of  villagers  and  got  away  with  it; 
then  foimd  that  the  machines  belonged  to  two 
monitors  who  were  bringing  them  from  Paris  and 
had  effected  a  panne  de  chateau.  Being  asked 
what  I  was  doing,  I  fortmiately  fomid  a  spark 
plug  on  the  bum  and  got  that  repaired.  The 
rest  of  it  was  very  easy,  a  bit  of  flying  in  the  rain 
which  stings  the  face  a  bit,  but  is  not  bad  other- 
wise. 

Since  I  have  been  on  the  Nieuport.  There  are 
three  sizes  of  machines  on  which  one  is  trained, 
starting  with  the  larger  double  command  and  go- 
ing to  the  smallest.  At  Pau,  we  get  another  even 
smaller,  about  as  big  as  half-a-minute.     Four 

40 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  43 

times  I  went  out  without  a  ride — bad  weather, 
crowded  class  and  busted  machines,  the  same  old 
story.  Then  last  night  I  had  my  first  rides  with 
a  monitor  who  is  rather  oldish,  crabbed  and  new 
at  his  job,  a  brand  new  aviator.  As  you  know, 
when  an  airplane  takes  a  turn,  it  does  not  remain 
horizontal  but  banks  up:  comme  fa  (if  you  can 
interpret  that  illustration — it  shows  signs  of  re- 
markable imaginative  power) — alors^  one  banks 
to  take  a  turn  and  uses  the  rudder  only  a  very 
little  because  the  machine  turns  along  when 
banked.  There  is  a  sort  of  falling-out  feeling  the 
first  few  times  until  one  becomes  a  part  of  the 
machine. 

To  get  back  to  the  story,  this  monitor  does  not 
like  to  bank  his  machine  and  sort  of  sidles  round 
the  comers,  keeping  it  quite  flat  and  almost  slip- 
ping out  to  the  outside  of  the  turn.  I  have  done 
many  fool  things  in  a  machine  and  made  many 
mistakes,  but  never  have  I  been  so  scared  in  any- 
thing in  my  life  as  when  riding  with  this  monitor. 
A  monitor  is  supposed  to  let  the  pupil  drive  as 
much  as  he  is  able,  but  this  bird  never  let  me 
make  a  move,  and  when  we  got  through  told  me 
I  was  too  brutal.  I  was  never  madder  in  my  life 
and  cursed  nice  American  cuss  words  all  the  way 


44  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

home.     There's  a  fifteen  kilo  ride  in  a  seatless 
tractor  back  to  camp  to  improve  a  bad  hmnor. 

Well,  this  morning  I  saw  some  more  rides  im- 
pending and  didn't  like  it,  so  asked  the  chef  de 
piste  to  put  me  with  another  monitor.  He  had 
to  know  why  and  I  registered  my  kick,  which 
practically  said  that  the  first  monitor  didn't  know 
his  business  and  couldn't  drive,  that  I  was  scared 
to  ride  with  him.  The  chef  was  a  bit  sarcastic 
and  told  me  to  take  two  rides  with  another  moni- 
tor to  show  how  I  could  make  a  virage.  I  did  it 
the  way  I've  been  accustomed  to,  made  a  fairly 
short  turn;  when  we  got  down,  the  monitor  said 
"Ejpatant"  (Am.  "stunning")  or  something  like 
that  to  the  chef.  The  chef  had  meanwhile  com- 
municated my  complaint  to  the  first  monitor  and 
he  was  the  maddest  man  I  ever  saw.  Demanded 
what  "Ce  type  la'  (indicating  me)  wanted,  said 
the  virages  I  had  just  made  were  dangerously 
banked  (the  monitor  I  was  with  didn't  mind, 
though)  and  then  all  three  started  arguing  at 
once  at  me  and  I  spelled  all  the  French  I  knew. 
About  that  time  I  thought  of  what  you  had  just 
told  me  in  a  letter  about  trusting  in  Latin,  which 
advice  and  remarks  I  have  come  to  agree  with 
very  much  (my  admiration  for  the  French  has 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  45 

waxed  less  daily),  and  here  I  realized  that  I  had 
very  successfully  made  a  fool  out  of  a  man  who 
was  supposed  to  be  my  teacher,  and  he  fully  re- 
sented it. 

Then,  of  all  things,  the  lieutenant,  without  fur- 
ther remarks,  said  I  was  to  continue  with  my 
first  monitor.  My  heart  sank  into  my  feet.  I 
had  visions  of  staying  in  that  class  without  rides 
or  with  only  rides  and  fights  for  months ;  I  rode 
no  more  this  morning  and  what  was  my  dehght 
to  find  this  evening  that  my  bewhiskered  pal  had 
left  on  permission.  I  got  another  monitor,  a  fine 
one  who  put  his  hands  on  the  side  of  the  machine 
and  let  me  do  everything  with  a  bit  of  assistance 
on  the  landing,  which  is  different  from  what  I've 
been  doing  on  the  Caudron.  Seven  rides  and  a 
finish — ^the  twenty-three-metre  tomorrow  morn- 
ing.   I  wasn't  very  good,  but  got  by. 


September  14,  1917. 
Things  for  me  are  going  all  right.  Have  made 
progress  on  the  Nieuport  since  last  I  wrote  and 
will  fly  alone  soon.  As  regards  the  U.  S.  Army, 
things  are  at  a  standstill  until  I  get  to  Paris 
which  will  be  a  week  or  so.  I  hope  to  go  to  the 
front  in  a  French  escadrille  and  in  an  American 
uniform.  Some  say  it  can  be  done ;  some  that  it 
cannot.  It  sounds  so  sensible  that  I  am  afraid 
there  must  be  some  regulation  against  it. 


46 


XI 

September  27,  1917. 
Since  last  I  wrote  a  regular  letter,  considerable 
has  taken  place.  First,  I  am  now  at  Pau,  having 
finished  up  Avord.  Have  sent  postcards  to 
Father  right  along  to  keep  track  of  movements. 
After  brevet  was  over,  I  did  not  take  the  custo- 
mary permission  of  forty-eight  hours,  but  went 
straight  to  work  on  Nieuport,  D.  C.  (double 
command) .  One  cannot  learn  a  great  deal  rid- 
ing with  an  instructor — only  about  enough  to 
keep  from  smashing  in  landing,  because  one 
never  knows  when  the  instructor  is  messing  with 
the  controls,  when  it's  one's  self.  There  are  five 
kinds  of  Nieuports — differing  mainly  in  size,  the 
smaller  being  faster  and  more  agile  in  the  air, 
better  adapted  to  eccentric  flying.  They  are  28, 
23,  18,  15,  13  (the  baby  Nieuport).  At  Avord 
I  had  about  a  week  of  D.  C.  on  28  and  23  (the, 
nimabers  refer  to  size  of  wings)  with  several  days 
of  no  work.  Then  some  days  on  23  alone  and 
finally  on  18  alone. 

47 


48  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

The  landings  are  a  bit  different  from  those  of 
the  machines  I  had  been  flying  as  they  are  faster 
and  the  machines  are  quite  nose-heavy.  In  the 
air  the  nose-heavy  feature  makes  them  "fly  them- 
selves"— ^that  is,  according  to  the  speed  of  the 
motor  the  machine  will  rise  and  climb  or  piquS 
and  descend,  with  never  a  touch  from  the  pilot. 
If  the  weather  is  not  very  bad,  the  Nieuport  will 
correct  itself  automatically  from  all  displace- 
ments. But  in  landing  the  nose-heavy  featiu'e 
causes  a  great  many  capotages.  If  the  landing 
isn't  done  about  right  with  the  tail  low — over  she 
goes  on  her  nose  or  all  the  way  onto  her  back.  It 
is  a  very  common  occurrence  and  has  become  al- 
most a  joke.  When  a  pupil  capotes,  everybody 
kids  him — ^no  one  hurries  over  to  see  if  he  is  hurt, 
not  at  all;  he  climbs  out  from  imder,  usually 
cursing,  and  in  ten  minutes  the  truck  is  out  to 
salvage  the  wreck. 

It  is  astoimding  the  way  smashes  are  taken  as 
a  matter  of  course.  Yesterday  one  chap  in  land- 
ing hit  another  machine,  demoUshing  both  but 
not  touching  either  pilot.  Being  worth  some 
$15,000  or  $25,000,  but  no  one  seemed  to  worry 
— it's  very  much  a  matter  of  course.  The  moni- 
tor was  a  little  peeved  because  he  will  be  short  of 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  49 

machines  for  a  few  days,  but  that  was  all.  I've 
seen  as  many  as  ten  machines  flat  on  their  backs 
or  with  tails  high  in  the  air,  on  one  field  at  the 
same  time.  For  myself,  I  haven't  capoted  or 
busted  any  wood  since  the  Bleriot  days.  But 
I'm  knocking  on  the  wooden  table  now.  On  sev- 
eral occasions  it  has  been  only  luck  that  saved  me, 
as  I've  made  many  rotten  landings. 

Well,  to  get  back  to  the  diary.  After  finish- 
ing at  Avord,  I  waited  around  for  two  days  to 
get  papers  fixed  up,  requested  and  obtained  per- 
mission and  then  decided  not  to  use  it  and  left 
straight  for  Pau  after  fond  farewells  to  the 
friends  I've  been  with  for  three  and  a  half 
months.  Looking  back,  I  didn't  have  such  a  bad 
time  at  Avord  after  all,  though  I  did  get  terribly 
tired  of  the  hving  conditions. 

My  trip  to  Pau  I  put  down  to  experience.  I 
discovered  one  schedule  not  to  travel  by  in  fu- 
ture. Leaving  Avord  at  2:15  I  got  to  Bourges 
at  2:45  and  found  that  the  train  left  at  7:29. 
Fortimately,  there  was  another  chap  from  the 
school  on  the  train,  Arthur  Bluthenthal,  an  old 
Princeton  football  star,  whom  I  have  gotten  to 
know  quite  well,  so  we  managed  to  waste  the  af- 
ternoon together.    At  7 :29  I  started  another  half 


60  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

hour's  journey,  at  the  end  of  which  the  timetable 
said  that  the  train  for  Bordeaux  left  at  10:30 
(this  is  all  P.  M.). 

At  this  town  there  were  some  American  engi- 
neers, so  I  embraced  the  fellow  countrymen  in  a 
strange  land.  Finished  up  a  not  very  gay  eve- 
ning by  attending  the  movies,  a  most  odd  insti- 
tution. Clouds  of  tobacco  smoke  obscured  the 
screen,  and  most  of  the  action  was  around  the 
bar  at  one  side  of  the  hall.  Nobody  was  drunk, 
but  nearly  every  one  was  drinking  and  very  gay. 
This  was  merely  Saturday  night  in  a  small  town 
of  the  Provinces — ^not  in  gay  Paree.  At  10:15 
I  got  in  a  first  class  compartment  and  tried  to 
find  a  comfortable  position  in  which  to  sleep.  At 
2:15  A.  M.  I  had  mussed  up  my  clothes  con- 
siderably, lost  my  temper  and  not  slept  a  wink. 
Then  we  had  to  change  again.  The  rest  of  the 
morning  I  sat  opposite  an  American  officer,  a 
queer  old  fogey,  and  we  tried  to  kid  each  other 
into  thinking  we  were  sleeping,  with  no  success. 
Arrived  at  Bordeaux  at  7  A.  M.,  and  found  that 
the  train  for  Pau  left  immediately,  so  I  missed 
out  on  breakfast,  too — Oh,  it  was  a  hectic  trip. 
My  idea  of  a  very  impleasant  occupation  is  that 
of  a  travelling  salesman  in  France. 


XII 

October  22,  1917. 


Ah, *: 

Once  more  I  take  my  pen  in  hand  to  lay  at 
your  feet  the  burdens  of  an  overwrought  (how  is 
that  word  spelled?)  mind,  said  burdens  being 
caused  by  a  most  unpleasant  captain.  Just  be- 
cause I  was  in  Paris  for  a  day  and  a  half  without 
a  permission,  he  handed  me  eight  days  of  jail, 
and  to-day  for  nothing  at  all  he  hauled  me  out  in 
front  of  the  entire  division  and  got  quite  angered 
when  I  told  him  in  extremely  broken  French  that 
I  hadn't  imderstood  a  word.  But  as  the  jail 
doesn't  mean  anything  and  doesn't  have  to  be 
served,  I  am  not  worrying  very  much.  The  af- 
ternoon is  misty  and  there  isn't  a  chance  of  fly- 
ing, so  he  takes  particular  care  that  nobody  leave 
the  piste  though  there  is  absolutely  nothing  to  do 
there,  no  chance  to  get  warm  or  comfortable. 
Which  at  least  gives  me  a  perfect  alibi  for  poor 
penmanship  as  I'm  sitting  in  a  machine  and  quite 
uncomfortable. 

*  One  of  his  school  friends. 

51 


62  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

Thoughtless  creature,  so  much  like  the  rest  of 
your  sex,  why  did  you  not  tell  me  where  Albert 
was  to  be  over  here,  or  what  he  was  going  to  do, 
or  what  service  he  was  in,  or  at  least  that  he  was 
in  France?  I  cleverly  deduced  the  latter  from 
yoiu*  letter,  but  did  not  know  where  to  find  him. 
When  I  got  your  letter  I  was  at  Pau,  not  far 
from  Bordeaux  (Didn't  I  write  you  or  postal- 
card  you  from  there?).  Afterward  at  Paris,  I 
talked  to  a  few  very  dressed  up  ensigns  with 
wings  on  them  somewhere  (Walker  is  the  only 

name  I  remember) ,  and  they  told  me  that 

was  near  Bordeaux  and  in  the  same  group  with 
themselves.  So  if,  etc.,  I  might  have  gone  to  see 
the  Big  Boy. 

Yesterday  I  went  to  see  Billy  and  another 
classmate  in  an  artillery  camp  the  other  side  of 
Paris.  They  are  officers  of  the  U.  S.  A.  and  live 
as  such,  which  incites  in  me  much  envy  as  I  am 
still  a  mere  corporal  of  France  and  treated  with 
no  more  than  my  due — not  quite  as  much  I  some- 
times think.  That  was  the  expedition  that 
brought  the  jail.  Lots  and  lots  of  people  are 
getting  over  here  now.  I've  seen  Heyliger 
Church  and  Kelly  Craig  who  are  about  to  be- 
come aviators  somewhere.    Porter  Guest  just  be- 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  63 

came  breveted  (that  is,  a  licensed  pilot)  and  was 
considerably  seen  in  Paris  shortly  after — ^no  end 
of  college  friends  are  over  here  and  even  an  oc- 
casional American  girl  is  seen  in  Paris.  No 
friends  as  yet. 

Your  letter — I  asked  at  Morgan  Harjes  about 

Miss and  found  that  she  is  at  the  front  in 

a  hospital,  so  I  can't  very  well  find  her  in  Paris. 
I'm  sorry  as  I  would  very  much  have  liked  to. 
What  one  might  call  permanent  people  are  very 
nice  to  know  in  Paris.    I  don't  know  anything 

about  the  front  yet,  but  if  I'm  near  Miss 's 

hospital,  will  try  to  get  acquainted. 

What  you  said  about and  his  going,  I 

can  pretty  well  appreciate.  There  isn't  a  thing 
in  the  world  to  worry  us  unmarried  and  very  in- 
dependent young  men  over  here.  If  something 
happens  to  us,  it  will  bother  you  all  back  home  a 
great  deal  more  than  us.  It's  very,  very  true 
that  women  have  the  heaviest  and  worst  part  of 
war.  I  had  to  write  a  letter  the  other  day  to  the 
mother  of  a  pal  over  here  who  shot  himself  when 
out  of  his  head.  A  fine  pilot  and  an  exception- 
ally charming  fellow,  how  I  pity  his  poor  mother. 
It's  almost  unbelievable  the  number  of  women 
one  sees  in  black  here  in  France.    Thank  God,  it 


54  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

can  never  become  that  bad  at  home,  for  the  war 
will  never  get  so  close  to  us  as  it  has  to  the 
French. 

I  haven't  the  inspiration  to  compose  an  imagin- 
ative aeronautic  thriller  to-day  about  the  experi- 
ences of  a  boy  aviator.  Since  last  writing,  have 
finished  Nieuport  at  Avord,  went  to  Pau  and 
there  did  acrobacy,  came  here  to  Plessis-Belle- 
ville  and  started  Spad,  now  await  assignment  to 
an  escadrille  which  ought  to  come  within  a  week. 
Haven't  broken  any  wood  since  Bleriot  days, 
but  have  been  a  bit  more  rational  and  done  about 
average  good  work.  The  preliminary  training  is 
over — combat  training  doesn't  amoimt  to  any- 
thing till  we  get  to  the  front.  I'll  be  on  a  mono- 
place  machine  surely.  So  in  my  next  you  can  ex- 
pect to  hear  mighty  tales  of  combating  the  Boche 
at  a  high  altitude.  I'm  beginning  to  hear  that 
it's  nothing  but  a  lot  of  routine  work,  few  com- 
bats and  pretty  soon  a  frightful  bore:  I  refuse 
to  believe  it  and  hang  on  to  romance  for  all  I'm 
worth. 

Give  my  regards  to  a  whole  lot  of  people  and 
tell  them  I  haven't  quite  given  up  all  hope  of  a 
letter  though  almost.  My  friends  as  a  group  are 
not  very  strong  on  letter  writing.    There  are  only 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  55 

a  very  few  shining  exceptions  like  yourself  and 
verily  they  do  make  of  me  the  heart  glad. 

But  enough  of  this,  'tis  bootless,  so  I  sign  my- 
self. 

Thine  as  of  yore, 

Stuakt. 


XIII 

Escadrille  Spa-84, 
Secteur  Postal  181, 
Par  A.  C.  M. — Paris. 
November  1,  1917. 
Well,  I'm  here — ^in  sight  of  the  front  at  last. 
To  date  I  haven't  been  out  there  yet  and  won't 
for  a  few  days  more  as  they  take  lots  of  care  of 
new  pilots  and  don't  feed  them  to  the  Boche  right 
away.  Probably  day  after  tomorrow  the  lieu- 
tenant in  command  will  take  me  out  to  show  me 
around  the  lines  and  after  that  I'll  take  my  place 
in  patrols  with  the  others.  The  work  is  exclu- 
sively patrolling,  establishing  as  it  were  a  bar- 
rage against  German  machines  and  preventing 
as  far  as  possible  any  incursions  of  the  French 
lines.  As  the  big  attack  is  over,  there  is  compara- 
tively little  activity.  Sometimes  one  goes  for  a 
whole  patrol  without  being  fired  on  and  without 
seeing  an  enemy  machine  anywhere  near  the  lines. 
Diu*ing  the  three  days  I've  been  here,  the  group 
has  accounted  for  several  Boches  without  any 

56 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  57 

losses  whatever.  Young  Bridgeman  of  the  La- 
fayette Escadrille  had  a  bullet  through  his  fuse- 
lage just  in  front  of  his  chest,  but  suffered  no 
damage  except  from  fright. 

There  are  several  escadriUes  in  the  group,  a 
groupe  de  combat — it  is  called — all  have  Spads 
which  makes  it  very  nice.  The  Lafayette,  124, 
is  of  our  group  and  have  adjoining  barracks, 
which  makes  it  very  nice  (I  seem  to  repeat)  for 
us  lone  Americans  in  French  escadriUes,  We 
drop  in  there  far  too  often  and  the  first  few  nights 
I  used  the  bed  of  the  famous  Bill  Thaw's  room- 
mate, away  on  permission.  Did  I  write  you  that 
one  morning  he  brought  in  Whiskey  to  wake  me 
up,  and  my  eye  no  sooner  opened  than  my  head 
was  buried  under  the  covers.  Whiskey  is  a  pet — 
a  very  large  lion  cub,  which  has  unfortimately 
outgrown  its  utiUty  as  a  pet  and  was  sent  yester- 
day, with  its  running  mate.  Soda,  to  the  Zoo  at 
Paris,  to  be  a  regular  lion. 

They  are  a  very  odd  crowd — the  members  of 
the  Lafayette  Escadrille,  a  few  nice  ones  and  a 
bimch  of  rather  roughnecks.  Their  conversation 
is  an  eye  opener  for  a  new  arrival.  Mostly  about 
Paris,  permissions,  and  the  rue  de  Braye,  but  oc- 
casionally about  work  and  that  is  interesting. 


58  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

Nonchalant  doesn't  express  it.  When  Bridgy 
got  shot  up  as  mentioned  above,  they  all  kidded 
the  life  out  of  him  and  when  he  got  the  Croix  de 
Guerre,  they  had  him  almost  in  tears — ^just  be- 
cause he's  the  kiddable  kind. 

But  in  talking  about  the  work — for  instance, 
Jim  Hall:  "I  piqued  on  him  with  full  motor  and 
got  so  dam  close  to  him  that  when  I  wanted  to 
open  fire  I  was  so  scared  of  running  into  him  that 
I  had  to  yank  out  of  the  way  and  so  never  fired 
a  single  shot."  Or  Luf berry  just  mentions  in 
passing  that  he  got  another  Boche  this  morning, 

but  those observer  people  won't  give  him 

credit  for  it.  He  has  fourteen  official  now  and 
probably  twice  as  many  more  never  allowed  him. 
Some  days  ago  during  the  attack  he  had  seven 
fights  in  one  day,  brought  down  six  of  them  and 
got  credit  for  one.    Which  must  be  discouraging. 


XIV 

November  5,  1917. 


WeU *: 

Here  I  find  myself  writing  to  you  without 
waiting  for  the  usual  two  or  three  months  to 
elapse.  Do  you  realize  that  it  was  over  five  and 
a  half  months  ago  that  I  left  my  native  land?  It 
doesn't  seem  near  so  long  to  me.  Just  at  present 
I  have  about  thirteen  hours  a  day  to  write,  read 
the  Washington  Star  and  New  York  Times,  eat 
an  occasional  meal  (we  only  get  two  over  here, 
worse  luck) ,  build  fires  in  the  stove  and  stroll  for 
exercise.  The  rest  of  the  time  is  devoted  to  sleep. 
A  terribly  hard  life  that  of  an  aviator  on  the 
western  front!  No  appels  (meaning  roll  calls), 
discipline  or  inspections.  Only,  if  there  should 
happen  to  be  a  good  day,  one  might  be  wanted  to 
fly  a  bit.  So  far  (I  have  only  been  out  here  a 
week)  we  have  had  perfectly  ideal  aviators' 
weather — ^nice  low  misty  clouds  about  300  or 
400  feet  up,  which  quite  prevent  aerial  activity 

*  One  of  his  school  friends. 

59 


60  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

and  yet  one  is  not  bothered  by  mud  or  depressed 
by  rain.  In  the  morning,  one  awakes,  pokes  his 
head  out  the  window,  says  "What  lo!  more  luck, 
a  nice  light  brotdllard/'  and  closes  the  window 
for  a  few  hours  more  of  sleep.  Really  I  have 
done  more  resting  the  past  week  than  most  peo- 
ple do  in  a  lifetime! 

To  get  statistical,  I  finished  up  at  Pau  (from 
where  I  sent  to  you  a  letter,  vfest-ce-pas?)  a 
month  ago,  and  then  spent  two  very  impleasant 
weeks  at  Plessis-Belleville  near  Paris,  at  the  big 
depot  for  the  front,  waiting  to  be  sent  to  an  esca- 
drillCj  with  nothing  to  do  but  a  little  desultory 
flying,  nurse  the  system,  food,  weather,  lodging, 
discipline,  etc.  Eventually  my  turn  came  and, 
with  another  American,  I  was  dispatched  to  Esc. 
SPA  84,  where  we  arrived  after  the  usual  delay 
passing  through  Paris.  That's  one  nice  thing 
about  this  country:  all  roads  lead  to  Paris.  Sent 
from  one  place  to  another,  it  is  a  safe  wager  that 
one  goes  via  Paris,  and  always  takes  forty-eight 
hours  there  and  gets  permission  for  it  if  he  can. 
There  are  a  few  Frenchmen  there  still,  but  on  the 
streets  one  sees  almost  entirely  American,  British 
or  British  Colonial  officers — occasionally  a 
French  aviator  and  of  course  clouds  of  sweet  and 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  61 

innocent  young  things — yes?  Nearly  all  of  my 
classmates  are  over  here  and  get  to  Paris  every 
once  in  a  while,  so  all  I  have  to  do  is  to  sit  at  the 
Cafe  de  le  Paix  and  if  I  wait  long  enough,  some 
one  I  know  will  surely  come  along. 

Well,  to  get  back  on  the  track,  we  eventually 
found  ourselves  members  of  le-dit  Esc.  SPA  84 
— one  esc.  of  a  groupe  de  chasse^  which  means  that 
we  will  have  patrolUng  work  to  do  mainly  and 
not  protection  of  observation  or  photo  machines 
— which  they  tell  me,  is  fortunate.  Also  we  have 
good  machines — ^the  best  there  are,  which  might 
not  have  happened  had  we  been  sent  to  another 
type  of  escadrille — purely  good  fortime.  The 
much  advertised  Lafayette  Esc.  No.  124,  is  a 
member  of  the  same  group,  is  located  near  us  and 
does  the  same  work,  which  makes  it  much  pleas- 
anter  for  lone  Americans.  We  use  their  stove 
and  tea  of  an  afternoon  quite  freely  as  our  quar- 
ters are  new  and  not  fixed  up.  But  say,  when  we 
do  get  going,  everybody  will  be  in  to  see  us. 
We'll  have  a  cosy,  beautifully  wallpapered  room 
clustering  around  a  stove.  .  .  .  The  men  of  124 
are  a  rather  good  crowd — ^not  much  different 
from  any  crowd  of  Americans,  a  bit  rough  but 
most  of  it  affected  because  they're  away  from 


62  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

home,  very  hospitable,  rather  daredevil  or  hard- 
hearted (whichever  you  wish  to  call  it — ^the  way 
they  talk  about  each  other's  narrow  escapes,  com- 
ing falls,  the  mistakes  or  misfortunes  of  departed 
brothers,  and  there  have  been  several)  and  very 
mixed,  centering  around  Lieutenant  Bill  Thaw, 
of  the  French  Army,  who  impresses  me  as  being 
very  much  of  a  leader  and  an  unusually  fine  type. 
There  is  one  tough  nut  from  a  Middle  Western 
Siwash-like  college,  who  was  probably  still  un- 
graduated  at  27,  and  a  quiet,  innocent  looking 
kid  who  seems  to  have  just  got  out  of  prep  school; 
of  course,  the  tough  guy  tears  the  little  one. 
Then  there  are  a  couple  of  old  Legionnaires — 
rather  superior  and  terribly  tired  of  war,  quite 
unenthusiastic,  but  I  dare  say  congenial  when 
one  gets  imder  their  hide  or  fills  it  full  of  booze. 
And  Jim  Hall,  the  author  chap — quiet,  reserved, 
almost  simple  in  his  lack  of  affectation  and  boyish 
in  his  enthusiasm.  (Gad,  how  he  wants  to  get 
his  Boche  and  he  almost  thinks  he  did  the  other 
day,  but  it  wasn't  verified.  He  followed  him 
down  from  1,500  to  200  metres,  shooting  all  the 
time,  and  thinks  he  must  have  brought  him 
down).  .  .  • 

Did  I  mention  above  that  I  am  at  present  in 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  63 

the  status,  practically,  of  a  non-flying  member? 
On  arriving  at  the  front,  one  is  not  rushed 
straightway  to  the  cannon's  mouth,  but  rather 
allowed  to  get  acclimated  a  bit  first,  to  have  a  few 
preliminary  voyages  to  look  around,  etc.  Dur- 
ing my  week  here,  there  has  been  little  flying  and 
I  haven't  even  seen  the  front,  only  heard  the  guns 
occasionally.  Of  my  three  flights,  two  were  just 
short  tours  de  champs.  But  the  other:  never  in 
my  wildest  Bleriot  days  did  I  do  a  wilder  one. 
Coming  from  Pau  where  I  had  tried  some  stunts, 
I  thought  I  was  a  bit  of  an  acrobat,  second  only 
to  Navarre,  Guynemer  and  a  few  others.  So  ar- 
riving at  a  safe  height,  I  started  to  go  through 
the  repertoire.  First  came  a  loop  which  got 
around  to  the  vertical  point — a  quarter  turn  and 
then  slipped,  ending  in  a  vertical  corkscrew  or 
climbing  barrel  turn  or  whatever  you  want  to 
call  it — then  losing  momentum  and  just  natur- 
ally timibUng.  I  didn't  know  what  was  going  on 
— only  that  it  wasn't  right;  they  told  me  after- 
ward. After  that  came  the  renversements  and 
vertical  turns,  etc.,  and  not  a  thing  came  out. 
Lost — I  got  lost  thirty  times  and  had  to  himt 
all  around  to  see  where  I  was.  Nothing  went 
right  and  I  kept  getting  madder  and  madder  and 


64  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

poorer  and  poorer.  They  were  all  laughing  down 
below  and  wondering  what  was  going  on  up  there. 
Eventually  the  party  ended — one  of  the  old 
pilots  told  me  that  that  one  flight  equalled  about 
thirty  hours  over  the  lines  and  the  commander 
advised  against  a  repetition  of  the  performance, 
and  so  I  went  and  lay  down.  Two  hours  later  I 
began  to  feel  that  perhaps  I  could  stand  on  my 
feet  again;  did  you  ever  have  mal-de-mer? 

So  now  I  really  ought  to  begin  to  learn  some- 
thing, having  acquired  that  all  essential  first 
knowledge  of  ignorance,  which  all  good  students 
should  have.  And  in  the  meantime  perhaps  I 
shall  go  and  combat  the  Wily  Hun.  Said  W. 
Hun  need  not  worry  about  my  bothering  him  if 
he  doesn't  keep  fooling  around  under  my  nose  till 
I'm  ashamed  not  to  go  after  him.  I'm  not  blood- 
thirsty a  bit,  especially  till  I  learn  to  fly,  and  the 
lack  of  combats  isn't  going  to  keep  me  awake 
nights  for  a  while  yet. 

But  the  bunkmate  seems  to  have  gone  to  bed; 
it's  almost  ten — a  most  imprecedented  hour  for 
me  to  be  up,  so  the  end  approaches.  Kind  re- 
membrances as  usual — ^use  your  discretion  and 
don't  forget  that  long  tale  of  "Washington  So- 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  65 

cial  Tid-Bits"  you  spoke  of — gossip  if  you  pre- 
fer. .  .  . 

As  ever, 
Stuart. 


The  Next  Day. 
Addenda: 

Your  letter  on  just  arriving  home  has  been 
with  me  some  time  and  truly  brought  joy  to  my 
heart  in  this  desolate  land.  ( The  "desolate"  seems 
to  fit  in  though  not  applying  to  the  land  in  ques- 
tion at  all.)   ... 

Chester  Snow  is  aviating  under  the  auspices 
of  the  U.  S.  Government.  I  last  heard  from  him 
in  a  postal  written  on  the  last  stop  of  the  last 
triangle  of  his  brevet,  so  he  should  be  through 
training  before  much  longer.  The  other  Chester, 
Bassett,  is  still  at  Avord,  so  I  can  not  deliver 
your  note  to  him.  .  .  . 

Your  other  question  referred  to  the  army  I  am 
in,  and  is  easily  answered  by  saying  that  the 
U.S.A.  has  as  yet  done  nothing  but  talk  about 
taking  us  over.  "Us"  now  refers  to  upward  of 
200  Americans,  I  think,  either  in  French  esca" 
drilles  or  well  advanced  in  the  French  schools. 
Constantly  all  summer,  we  have  been  "going  to 
be  transferred  in  two  weeks." 


66  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

Another  quiet,  non-flying,  slightly  rainy  day 
has  passed.  This  isn't  perhaps  the  most  ideal 
spot  in  the  world  for  a  winter  resort,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  comforts,  but,  consider- 
ing the  ease  of  conscience  because  one  is  not  in 
the  position  to  be  called  emhusque,  it  is  really  not 
half  bad.  It's  starting  to  rain  again  rather  hard- 
er; I  wonder  if  the  roof  will  keep  out  water? 

Yours,  etc., 

B.  S.  W. 


WAR   CROSS   WITH    PALM,   AWARDED 

IN    RECOGNITION    OF    WAI.COTT'S 

SERVICES 


XV 

November  10,  1917. 
Evening. 

You  know  November  in  France.  I've  been 
here  almost  two  weeks  now  and  am  still  a  Ven- 
trainement,  that  is,  I  haven't  started  in  to  do  any 
regular  work  yet.  Only  five  times  have  I  been 
able  to  fly  in  two  weeks.  But  I've  got  my  own 
machine,  and  mechanic,  everything  is  in  order 
and  I've  been  assigned  to  a  patrol  the  last  two 
mornings  when  it  rained.  Tomorrow  again  at 
8:50  with  four  others — patrol  for  one  hour  and 
fifty  minutes  at  about  15,000  feet,  back  and  forth 
over  our  sector,  sometimes  over  our  own  lines, 
sometimes  in  Bochie.  I'm  getting  very  impa- 
tient to  get  started.  In  what  few  flights  I've 
had,  I've  been  working  on  acrobacy  a  bit  and  am 
gradually  learning  a  few  simple  things;  twice  I 
stayed  up  a  little  too  long  and  had  to  lie  down  a 
few  hours  afterward,  almost  seasick. 

I  like  Spa  84  very  much  indeed.  The  French- 
men there  are  much  more  regular  fellahs  than 
most  of  those  I've  been  with  in  the  schools. 

67 


68  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

Wertheimer,  a  sergeant,  is  a  sort  of  informal 
and  unadmitted  chief  of  the  soiis-officiers.  It  is 
he  that  speaks  Enghsh  and  has  helped  us  a  lot  in 
getting  settled,  etc.  Very  much  of  a  gentleman 
he  is,  and  understands  a  bit  Anglo-Saxon  cus- 
toms and  eccentricities,  always  gay  and  an  inde- 
fatigable worker.  We  have  all  been  arranging 
the  one  big  room  of  our  barracks — dining  room, 
reading  room,  and  probably  eventually  American 
bar.  The  walls  are  covered  with  green  cloth, 
green  paper  (of  two  different  shades  and  neither 
quite  the  same  as  the  cloth),  red  cloth  (on  top  as 
a  sort  of  frieze)  and  red  paper.  The  ceiling  is 
done  in  white  cloth  to  keep  in  heat  and  Ughten  the 
room.  A  monimiental  task  it  has  been,  especially 
as  materials  are  hard  to  get  and  expensive. 
Wertem  (as  Wertheimer  is  called)  and  Deborte 
have  done  most  of  the  work.  Deborte  is  also 
chef  de  popote,  which  means  housekeeper,  and  a 
very  efficient  man.  For  four  francs  per  day  we 
are  fed  amazingly  well,  especially  when  one  real- 
izes that  we  are  near  the  front  in  a  coimtry  which 
has  had  three  years  of  war.  Deborte  hasn't  the 
pleasantest  manner  in  the  world  at  times,  but 
usually  is  very  agreeable,  willing  to  tell  me  things 
about  flying  or  the  escadrille,  always  ready  to 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  69 

work,  and  a  dependable  man  in  the  air.  And 
Verber  who  rooms  with  Wertem, — he  speaks  a 
little  English,  has  a  great  deal  of  trouble  mider- 
standing  it,  but  is  picking  up.  Wears  a  monocle 
all  the  time  because  he's  got  a  bum  eye,  carries  a 
stick  and  has  an  extremely  eccentric  appearance, 
but  withal  is  very  agreeable  and  a  very  valuable 
man.  He  has  the  habit  of  taking  long  trips  all 
alone  far  into  Germany  just  to  see  what  is  going 
on.  Pinot  is  the  name  of  the  Httle  roly-poly  chap 
everybody  calls  Bul-Bul,  who  used  to  be  a  me- 
chanic and  now  is  a  very  good,  merry  pilot.  He 
has  a  great  pension  toward  Pinard,  is  violently 
but  not  at  all  objectionably  non-aristocratic,  is 
forever  laughing  or  kidding  some  one,  walks  on 
his  hands  to  amuse  people,  and  is  the  dehght  of 
all  the  mecanos.  Demeuldre  is  a  very  quiet  sort 
of  school  boy  type  who  has  been  a  pilot  of  bi- 
planes and  reconnaissance  machines  for  a  long 
time.  He  came  to  the  escadrille  recently  with  a 
record  of  two  Boches  as  pilot  of  a  biplane  (that 
is,  his  machine  gun  man  did  the  shooting  and  they 
both  get  credit),  and  a  few  days  ago  brought 
down  a  German  in  flames,  his  first  as  pilote  de 
chasse.  There  are  two  others  away  on  permis- 
sion, whom  I  don't  know  yet. 


XVI 

Somewhere  in  France, 

November  13,  1917. 
Dear  Father: 

Campbell  was  in  the  Lafayette  Escadrille  and 
they  are  a  member  of  the  same  group  as  Spa  84, 
so  I  have  asked  them  about  him.  He  was  on  a 
patrol  with  another  chap,  they  attacked  some 
Boches  and  when  it  was  over  the  other  chap  was 
alone.  Campbell  was  brought  down  in  German 
territory  and  so  reported  missing.  I  believe  that 
the  chap  he  was  with  has  seen  and  talked  to 
Campbell's  father  or  some  close  relative  since. 
Another  chap  named  Bulkley  was  brought  down 
in  similar  circumstances  about  the  first  of  Sep- 
tember. Ten  days  ago,  word  was  received  from 
the  American  Embassy  that  he  had  communi- 
cated with  them,  a  prisoner  in  Germany.  There 
are  many  similar  cases,  where  men  brought  down 
with  crippled  machines  or  wounded  escape  de- 
struction by  a  miracle.  The  only  sure  thing  is 
when  a  machine  goes  down  in  flames  or  is  seen  to 
lose  a  wing  or  two. 

70 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  71 

For  instance,  there  are  two  officers  in  the  group 
who  are  in  the  best  of  health  and  daily  working. 
Several  months  ago,  they  were  on  patrol  to- 
gether, collided  in  the  air.  One  cut  the  tail  rig- 
ging completely  off  the  other  and  they  separated, 
one  without  a  tail  and  the  other  with  various 
parts  of  a  tail  mixed  among  the  cables  and  struts 
of  one  side  of  his  machine.  They  both  landed  in 
France,  one  on  his  wheels  followed  by  a  capotage 
or  somersault  turnover,  the  other  quite  complete- 
ly upside  down.  Then  a  term  in  the  hospital  and 
back  they  are  again.  Kenneth  Marr,  an  Ameri- 
can, had  the  commands  of  both  his  tail  controls 
cut  in  a  combat,  the  rudder  and  elevator,  leaving 
him  nothing  but  the  aileron — the  lateral  balance 
control  and  the  motor.  He  landed  with  only  a 
skinned  nose  for  casualties  and  got  a  decoration 
for  it. 

Another  chap  in  an  attack  on  captive  balloons, 
drachens,  dove  for  something  like  10,000  feet 
vertically  and  with  full  motor  on,  thereby  gain- 
ing considerable  speed  as  you  can  imagine.  He 
came  right  on  top  of  the  balloon,  shot  and  to  keep 
from  hitting  it,  yanked  as  roughly  as  he  could, 
flattening  out  his  dive  in  the  merest  fraction  of  a 
second.     Imagine  the  strain  on  the  machine! 


72  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

When  he  got  home,  all  the  wires  had  several 
inches  sag  in  them;  the  metal  connections  of  the 
cables  in  the  struts  and  wood  of  the  wings  had  bit 
into  the  wood  enough  to  give  the  sag. 

Machines  are  built  to  stand  immense  pressure 
on  the  imder  side  of  the  wings.  In  some  acro- 
batic manoeuvres  I  was  trying  the  other  day,  I 
made  mistakes  and  caused  the  machine  to  stall 
and  then  fall  in  such  a  way  that  the  full  weight 
was  supported  by  the  upper  surface — by  the 
wires  which  in  most  machines  are  supposed  mere- 
ly to  support  the  weight  of  the  wings  when  the 
machine  is  on  the  ground.  Yes,  the  Spad  is  a 
well  built  machine,  the  nearest  thing  to  perfection 
in  point  of  strength,  speed  and  climbing  power 
I've  seen  yet.  Of  course  it's  heavy  and  that's 
why  they  put  150-230  HP  in  them.  The  other 
school,  that  of  a  light  machine  with  a  light  motor 
— depending  for  its  success  on  lack  of  weight 
rather  than  excess  of  power,  may  supplant  the 
heavier  machine  in  time — I  can't  tell.  So,  as 
anyone  who  knows  has  said  right  along,  there  is 
a  long  way  to  go  in  the  development  of  the  J  N 
or  even  the  little  tri-plane,  before  American  built 
planes  get  to  the  front.  Of  the  bombing  game, 
I  don't  know  anything  at  all. 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  73 

Yesterday  there  was  a  revue  here  in  honor  of 
Guynemer,  and  decorations  for  the  pilots  of  the 
group  who  had  won  them.  Three  Americans  re- 
ceived the  Croix  de  Guerre — ^members  of  the  La- 
fayette Escadrille.  Lufberry,  the  American  ace, 
carried  the  American  flag  presented  to  the  esca- 
drille by  Mrs.  McAdoo  and  the  employees  of  the 
Treasury  Department — besides  the  two  aviation 
emblems  of  France.  He  was  called  to  receive 
his  decoration  "for  having  in  the  course  of  one 
day  held  seven  combats,  descended  one  German 
plane  in  flames,  and  forced  five  others  to  land  be- 
hind their  lines"  (which  means  that  he  is  officially 
credited  with  one,  his  thirteenth,  and  that  the 
other  five  though  probably  brought  down,  do  not 
count  for  him  because  there  were  not  the  neces- 
sary witnesses  required  by  the  French  regula- 
tion) .  Being  the  bearer  of  the  flag,  he  was  a  very 
worried  man  to  know  what  to  do  with  the  flag 
when  he  should  go  up  to  get  his  medal,  till  one 
of  the  fellows  in  124  (the  Lafayette)  came  to 
his  rescue. 

For  a  miUtary  revue  it  was  decidedly  amusing. 
Aviators  are  not  very  military.  The  chief  of  one 
of  the  escadrilles  was  commissioned  to  command 
the  mechanics  who  are  plain  soldiers  with  rifles 


74  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

and  steel  helmets  for  the  occasion.  He  is  a  bit 
of  a  clown  and  amused  the  entire  gathering,  kid- 
ding with  the  officers.  The  pilots  of  each  of  the 
five  escadrilles  were  in  more  or  less  formation, 
most  of  them  with  hands  in  their  pockets  for  it 
was  chilly,  and  presenting  a  mixture  of  uniforms 
unparalleled  in  its  heterogeneity.  Every  branch 
of  the  service  represented  and  endless  personal 
ideas  in  dress.  Because  of  the  occasion,  repos  has 
been  granted  to  the  entire  group  for  the  after- 
noon, another  group  taking  over  our  patrols.  So 
that  after  the  revue,  everyone  had  the  afternoon 
to  waste — a  sunny  day  which  is  quite  unusual  this 
month.  Within  a  half  hour,  every  machine  that 
was  in  working  order  was  in  the  air — forming 
into  groups  and  then  off  for  the  lines,  just  look- 
ing for  trouble — a  voluntary  patrol  they  call  it. 
Which  opened  my  eyes  a  bit  to  the  spirit  in  the 
French  service  after  three  years  of  war. 

Word  from  Paris  that  those  Americans  in  the 
French  service  who  have  demanded  their  release 
to  join  the  U.  S.  A.  have  obtained  that  release — 
which  probably  means  that  all  we  wait  for  now 
...  is  the  commissions. 

This  afternoon  I  took  another  trip  with  one  of 
the  old  pilots  to  look  over  the  sector.    We  stayed 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  75 

over  France  and  didn't  get  into  trouble  although 
there  were  lots  of  Boches  around.  Hope  to  get 
really  started  soon.  .  .  •  An  amusing  one  this 
morning:  two  pilots  from  the  group  were  on 
patrol  and  attacked  a  single  German  about  two 
kilometres  behind  the  German  lines.  They  com- 
pletely outmanoeuvred  him,  he  got  cold  feet  and 
started  for  the  French  lines,  giving  himself  up. 
The  funniest  part  about  it  is  that  the  machine 
gun  of  one  of  the  attackers  was  jammed  and  he 
couldn't  possibly  have  hurt  the  Boche — just  had 
the  nerve  to  stay  and  throw  a  bluflp.  They  came 
back  to  camp  just  before  dark  this  evening,  one 
of  them  flying  the  German  machine  and  the  other 
guarding  him  in  a  Spad.  The  machine  is  an 
Albatross  monoplane  (biplane) — finished  in 
silver  with  big  black  crosses  on  the  wings  and  tail 
— a  really  beautiful  thing.  It  flew  around  camp 
for  several  minutes  before  landing.  It  is  the  sec- 
ond machine  that  has  been  scared  down  since  I've 
been  out  here. 


XVII 

At  the  Front, 
Somewhere  in  France, 

November  17,  1917. 
At  present  things  are  hopelessly  slow  on  ac- 
count of  bad  weather,  so  I  have  a  good  deal  of 
time  to  write  and  naught  to  write  of.  I  still  am 
waiting  for  my  baptism  of  active  service  which  is 
assigned  for  each  day  and  held  up  on  account  of 
fog,  low  clouds  or  rain.  In  the  afternoon  it  usu- 
ally lifts  a  little,  not  enough  to  fly  over  the  hnes, 
but  sufficient  to  permit  a  little  vol  dfentrainement, 
a  practice  flight  around  the  field.  I've  been  tak- 
ing every  chance  to  learn  to  fly,  practicing  re- 
versements,  vertically  banked  turns,  90°  nose 
dives,  etc.  Two  day  ago,  we  had  a  very  interest- 
ing mimic  combat  in  the  air.  The  Boche  ma- 
chine, which  has  been  captured,  and  a  Spad,  both 
driven  by  very  clever  pilots,  manoeuvred  for  po- 
sition during  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  at  1,000 
feet  or  less,  back  and  forth  over  the  field,  doing 
almost  every  possible  thing  in  the  air — changing 

76 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  77 

direction  with  incredible  rapidity,  diving,  climb- 
ing, wing  slipping,  upside  down  dives — every- 
thing under  the  sun. 

Two  of  them  were  at  it  again  today  in  two 
Spads,  just  manoeuvring.  What  a  lot  there  is  to 
learn!  When  I  got  through  acrobacy  at  Pau,  I 
had  the  impression  that  that  kind  of  stuff  was  rel- 
atively easy — ^now  I  know  different.  For  the 
present  I'm  working  on  the  system  of  try  one 
thing  at  a  time — get  that  fairly  well  and  then 
commence  another.  And  small  doses — ^ten  or 
fifteen  minutes  for  an  acrobatic  flight,  not  more, 
because  one  can  easily  get  dangerously  sick  in  a 
very  short  time.  Not  that  there  is  any  particular 
peril  in  getting  ill  in  the  air,  only  it's  beastly  un- 
comfortable ! 


XVIII 

At  the  Fkont — Somewhere  in  France. 
November  30,  1917. 

The  rumor  at  the  Lafayette  Eseadrille  this 
evening  is  that  they  have  been  at  last  transferred. 
Of  course  they  had  similar  rumors  many  times 
before.  For  myself  I  am  becoming  rather  indif- 
ferent, very  well  satisfied  here  except  for  weather, 
and  getting  what  I  came  over  here  for. 

Father  mentioned  something  about  a  monitor's 
job  (after  I  had  had  experience  at  the  front). 
My  present  inclination  is  decidedly  against  the 
idea.  There  is  no  job  in  the  world  I  like  less  to 
think  of  and  there  are  plenty  of  people  who  want 
to  get  comfortably  settled  in  the  rear,  so  let  them, 
say  I,  and  may  they  enjoy  it.  It  is  not  a  very 
pleasant  job.  As  a  retirement  after  a  period  of 
service  at  the  front  it  is  another  matter.  Of  all 
people  I  can  think  of  I  have  the  smallest  right  to 
an  embusque  job  at  present — so  here  I  hope  to 
stay.  Whether  I  fly  with  an  American  or  French 
uniform  I  don't  care  very  much  at  the  present 

78 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  79 

moment.  I  had  rather  get  a  Boche  than  any  com- 
mission in  the  army,  but  one  cannot  always  tell 
about  the  future;  perhaps  after  a  few  good  scares 
I'll  be  ready  to  jump  at  a  monitor's  job. 


XIX 

At  the  Feont, 
December  1,  1917. 

I  tried  to  give  you  all  sorae  idea  of  the  strength 
of  a  Spad  in  a  letter  a  while  ago.  At  home  peo- 
ple speak  of  a  factor  of  safety,  meaning  the  num- 
ber of  times  stronger  the  machine  is  than  is  neces- 
sary for  plain  flying.  The  Spad  is  made  so  that 
a  man  can't  bust  it  no  matter  what  he  does  in  the 
air — dive  as  far  and  as  fast  as  he  can  and  stop  as 
brutally  as  he  can — it  stands  the  racket.  Of 
course,  motors  do  stop  and  if  it  happens  over  a 
mountain  range — ^well,  that's  just  hard  luck. 

Have  had  a  few  patrols  since  last  I  wrote. 
One  at  a  high  height,  4,000-4,500  metres,  consid- 
erably above  the  clouds  which  almost  shut  out  the 
ground  below,  wonderfully  beautiful  sight  but 
beastly  cold,  and  a  couple  when  the  clouds  were 
low  and  solid.  The  patrol  stays  at  just  the 
height  of  the  clouds,  hiding  in  them  and  slipping 
out  again  to  look  around.  If  it  gets  below,  the 
enemy  anti-aircraft  guns   pepper  it   whenever 

80 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  81 

near  the  lines  and  at  a  low  altitude  that  is  rather 
awkward — so  the  patrol  shows  itself  as  little  as 
possible. 

It's  lots  of  sport  to  try  to  keep  with  the  patrol: 
be  behind  the  chief  of  patrol,  see  him  disappear 
and  then  bump  into  a  fog  bank,  a  low-hanging 
cloud  and  not  see  a  darn  thing.  Then  dive  down 
out  of  the  cloud  wondering  whether  the  other 
guy  is  right  underneath  or  not;  shoot  out  of  the 
cloud  and  see  him  maybe  500  yards  away  going 
at  right  angles.  Then  bank  up  and  turn  around 
fast  and  give  her  the  gear — full  speed  to  catch 
up  and  so  on.  See  a  Boche  regulating  artillery 
fire,  start  to  manoeuvre  into  range  and  zip!  he's 
out  of  sight  in  the  clouds  and  the  next  you  see  he 
is  beating  it  far  back  of  his  lines.  Not  very  dan- 
gerous this  weather,  but  lots  of  fun. 


XX 

December  3rd,  1917. 


Dear *: 

Thanks  for  the  merry,  merry  wishes  for  the 
gay  Xmas  season  and  I'll  try  to  remember  them 
when  the  day  comes  along.  Sundays  and  holi- 
days are  not  very  much  noticed  here  at  the  front, 
except  that  on  Sunday  the  mechanics  all  get  full 
of  pinard  and  song  and  devilment — ^the  pinard 
(meaning  cheap  red  ink  used  by  the  French  in 
place  of  drinking  water)  is  of  course  responsible 
for  the  two  latter.  In  the  villages,  the  entire  male 
population  likewise  drinks  much  wine  and  every- 
one— ^man,  woman,  child,  dog,  and  domestic  ani- 
mal, parades  the  streets — dressed  up  all  like  a 
picture  book  (applying  mostly  to  women  and 
children) .  Occasionally  they  cross  the  sidewalk, 
but  the  middle  of  the  street  is  the  place  to  walk. 

One  Sunday,  I  went  to  church,  the  first  time 
since  last  Easter,  I  think,  to  attend  the  mass 
given  for  the  departed  brethren  of  the  escadrille. 

*  One  of  his  school  friends. 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  8S 

The  chapel  is  in  a  little  town  a  few  miles  from  our 
camp.  Along  in  the  Middle  Ages  or  anyway  a 
long  time  ago,  there  was  a  beautiful  cathedral 
there — ^now  the  town  is  insignificantly  small. 
The  front  of  the  cathedral  is  standing  almost  in 
its  entirety  and  the  walls  for  a  Uttle  way  back, 
dwindling  down  into  glorious  ruins  and  finally 
tumbled  masses  of  rock  and  stray  pillars.  Where 
the  back  wall  once  stood,  there  now  runs  a  little 
brook  (I  almost  called  it  bubbling,  but  it  hap- 
pens to  be  an  unusually  dead  and  not  over-clean 
little  stream) .  The  chapel  is  a  place  about  as  big 
as  a  minute,  snuggling  in  beside  the  big  front 
wall  of  the  ancient  cathedral.  The  service  was 
meaningless  to  me — what  wasn't  Latin  was 
French.  I  followed  the  fellow  in  front  of  me 
and  didn't  miss  it  once  on  the  getting  up  and 
down  (fortimately,  militaires  don't  have  to  kneel, 
I  suppose  because  they  appreciate  the  fact  that 
most  of  them  wear  breeches  made  by  French 
tailors). 

But  they  fooled  me  once.  What  must  have 
been  the  village  belle  (what  a  village!)  passed  a 
little  button  bag  affair  in  baby  blue  ribbon, 
and  gathered  up  the  shekels.  I  dropped  mine 
in  and  horror — here  comes  the  young  sister  with 


84  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

an  identical  bag  and  asks  for  more  and  I  was  un- 
prepared and  had  to  turn  her  down  amidst  my 
blushes.  I  thought  she  was  working  on  the  other 
side  of  the  house  as  we  used  to  do  at  evening  ser- 
vice and  to  this  day  I  don't  know  why  they  took 
up  two  collections  though  it  has  been  explained 
to  me  three  times  in  French. 

Have  had  some  very  pleasant  trips  over  the 
Gterman  border  (present,  not  1914),  have 
watched  a  few  Archies  bursting  at  a  safe  distance 
away  and  seen  some  specks  which  were  Boche 
planes,  but  am  not  ready  to  write  a  book  yet.  • 
Yesterday  morning  we  had  the  first  sortie  at  6 :45 
daylight.  A  solid  bank  of  clouds  over  the  camp 
here  at  2,000  metres.  The  lines  are  parallel  to  a 
river  and  a  few  kilometres  north.  The  edge  of 
the  cloud  bank  was  over  the  river,  sharp  as  if  cut 
by  a  knife  and  all  Germany  cloudless.  We 
slipped  out  from  under  it  and  back  on  top  just 
in  time  to  see  the  sun  get  over  the  horizon — al- 
most as  far  away /as  Rheims,  which  we  just  can- 
not see.  The  river  and  canal  were  just  silver 
ribbons  on  a  black  cloth  stretching  for  miles  due 
east.  Under  us  we  could  make  out  the  ground 
on  one  side  and  the  clouds  on  the  other,  and  to 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  85 

the  west  the  cloud  bank  continued  to  follow  the 
lines,  a  gloriously  beautiful  panorama.  The 
cloud  bank  stayed  nearly  the  same  the  two  hours 
we  were  up.  From  a  distance  above  or  below, 
a  cloud  is  just  a  big,  soft,  quiet  cushion  of  cotton 
fluflf,  but  near  to  it  is  a  seething,  irregular,  toss- 
ing, furious  jmnble  of  mist. 

We  saw  a  few  Boches,  far  behind  their  lines. 
An  hour  after  we  were  back,  they  said  that  Luf- 
bery  had  just  brought  down  another  machine,  his 
15th,  in  flames.  He  was  using  a  new  machine 
and  the  gun  was  not  properly  regulated — seven 
balls  were  in  each  blade  of  the  propeller,  yet  it 
held  together  and  brought  him  home.  I  was 
down  at  the  Lafayette  hangars  talking  to  Bill 
Thaw,  and  here  comes  the  mighty  man  in  a  hurry 
from  reporting  his  flight.  With  fire  in  his  eye 
he  got  in  his  old  machine  and  off  again  for  the 
lines.  At  noon  he  had  brought  down  another, 
which  hasn't  yet  been  officially  homologue,  but  is 
none  the  less  sure  for  that.  Thaw  brought  down 
one  this  morning.  They  are  doing  well,  these 
men  of  the  American  Escadrille — still  French, 
however,  though  shortly  to  be  transferred,  we 
hear. 


86  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

May  your  Xmas  be  a  happy  one,  and  the  new 
year  and  those  to  follow  bring  you  ever  better 
fortune  than  the  last  one. 

Stuabt. 


XXI 

Chalons-sur-Marne. 

December  8,  1917. 

Dear * : 

I  got  the  Sunday  Star  a  few  days  ago  and 

there  was  that  same  old  picture  and  

staring  me  in  the  face!  A  very  nice  write-up,  I 
thought  it.  What  a  bunch  of  big-wigs  they  did 
gather  together!  We  packed  up  bag  and  bag- 
gage yesterday  and  flew  off  to  a  new  place,  and 
here  we  are  waiting  for  the  baggage  to  catch  up. 
I  have  grave  fears  that  there  may  be  some  fight- 
ing one  of  these  days,  and  if  so,  I  think  it  will  be 
about  time  for  me  to  get  out  of  this  war.  Cheery 
oh! 

Stuabt. 

*  One  of  his  school  friends. 


87 


XXII 

Chalons  sur  Marne. 
December  8,  1917. 
Yesterday  we  were  awakened  at  6  and  told 
that  we  were  going  to  move  out,  bag  and  bag- 
gage at  2.  So  now  as  new  barracks  were  not 
ready  we  came  down  here  last  night  and  have 
been  seeing  the  sights  of  the  town  since.  It  is 
full  of  Americans,  ambulances,  doctors,  Y.  M. 
C.  A.  workers,  everything  but  fighting  men  which 
I  trust  we'll  see  before  long. 

Stuart. 


THE  FINAL  COMBAT 

On  December  12,  while  on  patrol,  Stuart 
Waleott  met  a  German  biplane  carrying  two 
men.  Three  cable  reports  agree  that  he  shot 
down  and  destroyed  this  machine  about  two  and 
a  half  miles  within  the  German  lines.  He  then 
started  back  for  the  French  lines  and  was  over- 
taken by  four  Albatross  German  planes.  He 
was  overcome  and  his  machine  went  down  in  a 
nose  dive  within  the  German  lines,  it  being  as- 
simied  that  either  he  was  shot  or  his  machine 
disabled. 

There  was  still  a  hope  that  he  might  have 
escaped  death.  Inquiries  were  at  once  instituted 
through  the  American  Red  Cross  and  the  Inter- 
national Red  Cross,  with  the  result  that  on  Janu- 
ary 7  a  cable  came  from  the  International  Red 
Cross  stating  that  it  was  reported  in  Germany 
that  S.  Waleott  was  brought  down  during  the 
afternoon  of  December  12  near  Saint  Souplet, 
and  that  he  was  killed  by  the  fall. 


STUART  WALCOTT 

[A  biographical  note  written  by  his  father.] 

Benjamin  Stuart  Walcott  was  sturdy  and 
self-reliant  as  a  boy  and  very  early  developed 
strong  personal  initiative,  good  sense  and  cour- 
age. I  find  in  my  notebook  under  an  entry  of 
July  6,  1905,  a  few  days  before  Stuart's  ninth 
birthday,  that  with  him  and  his  brother  Sidney 
I  had  measured  a  section  of  over  10,000  feet  in 
thickness  of  rock  with  dip  compass  and  rod  in 
northern  Montana,  and  that  that  night  we  slept 
out  on  the  Continental  Divide  after  a  sandwich 
apiece  for  supper.  On  July  16,  "Went  up  the 
Gordon  Creek  with  Stuart  and  cut  a  few  trees 
out  of  the  trail."  And  on  the  next  day,  "Stuart 
asisted  me  in  collecting  fossils  from  the  Middle 
Cambrian  Rocks." 

In  1906  Stuart  helped  in  gathering  Cambrian 
fossils  in  central  Montana,  and  in  recognition  of 
his  effective  work  one  of  the  new  species  of  shells 
was  named  after  him,  Micromitra  (Paterina) 
stuarti. 

90 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  91 

He  also  assisted  in  British  Columbia  in  geo- 
logical work  during  the  summer  of  1907,  and  in 
1908,  when  twelve  years  old,  he  was  placed  with 
one  packer  in  charge  of  a  pack  train  operating  in 
what  is  now  the  Glacier  Park,  Montana,  and  in 
southern  British  Columbia.  On  this  trip  one 
morning  I  heard  faint  rifle  shots,  and  upon  over- 
taking the  pack  train  found  Stuart  shooting 
away  with  a  22  gauge  rifle  at  a  grizzly  bear,  which 
was  some  distance  down  the  slope  below  the  trail. 
On  reminding  him  of  the  danger,  he  said  he 
wanted  to  drive  the  bear  away  to  prevent  a  stam- 
pede of  the  animals. 

Both  at  home  and  in  school  his  actions  were 
largely  influenced  by  a  determination  first  to 
know  what  was  the  right  thing  to  do,  and  guided 
by  this  habit,  when  it  looked  as  though  the  United 
States  would  enter  the  European  War,  he  de- 
cided that  it  was  his  duty  to  take  part  in  it. 
When  the  Lusitania  was  simk  he  felt  strongly 
that  the  United  States  should  take  a  positive 
stand  in  favor  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas,  that  the 
rights  of  Americans  should  be  protected  even  if 
it  meant  war,  and  he  was  ready  to  fight  for  it. 

In  common  with  the  majority  of  the  youth  of 
America,  he  had  the  feeling  that  it  was  a  patriotic 


92  ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES 

duty  and  privilege  to  offer  personal  service  to  the 
Nation  when  its  ideals  and  motives  were  assailed 
by  a  foreign  foe.  He  first  offered  his  services  to 
the  Signal  Corps  and  received  a  temporary  ap- 
pointment. Realizing  that  training  as  an  expert 
aviator  could  be  more  quickly  obtained  in  France 
than  in  this  country,  he  went  to  France  and  en- 
listed in  the  French  Army  with  the  expectation 
of  being  transferred  later  to  the  American 
forces.  This  would  have  been  done  prior  to  his 
being  shot  down  within  the  German  Hnes  on  De- 
cember 12,  had  he  not  been  awaiting  action  by 
the  United  States  Aviation  Service  in  France  in 
examining  and  arranging  for  the  transfer  of  the 
American  aviators  in  the  French  Army  to  the 
service  of  the  United  States. 

Throughout  his  life  the  dominating  thought 
was  to  be  of  positive  service  wherever  he  might 
be  placed.  At  the  same  time  he  was  thoroughly 
a  boy  and  enjoyed  a  frolic  and  fun  as  much  as 
any  one  of  his  companions. 

He  prepared  for  college  at  the  Taft  School, 
expecting  to  enter  Yale,  and  passed  the  exami- 
nations for  that  university  before  he  was  sixteen. 
Upon  further  consideration  he  selected  Prince- 
ton, largely  because  of  the  preceptorial  method 


ABOVE  THE  FRENCH  LINES  93 

of  training,  and  was  a  senior  when  he  decided  to 
enter  the  service  of  his  country. 

Stuart  was  an  unusually  well  balanced  boy  and 
youth;  his  moral  convictions  were  sound,  definite, 
and  expressed  by  action  rather  than  words. 

Charles  D.  Walcott. 


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